The idea is very different than the reality. The freedom of information, communication, and variety are so much better now.
Need a job, get a newspaper for classified ads and take whatever you can get, or start calling friends and networking when you’re lucky to get a voicemail.
Want to unwind and watch something? You can spend all evening flipping through channel after channel of garbage.
Need to learn something, prepare to spend days going to different public libraries to find anything useful. Most people don’t learn anything. Most people’s only adult social connection is though religion. It is a small dumb world where I grew up.
One thing I would not take for granted is the massive amount of information out there for repairing/ fixing things in your home. If you have an issue with your lawn mower, I guarantee that someone recorded a video of how to fix it step by step. It is absolutely mind boggling what we have at our finger tips.
It was probably somewhat beneficial that we all had to go outside and do something through; but yeah in smaller places your only real option would be a church or bar. I miss being able to hang out at the mall, for example; where you’d bump into your friends etc and different groups where there. Was sometimes like a big party. Then again, I was also a kid, we still had arcades that weren’t just dirty ticket casinos.
I called my grandfather when I wanted to learn something. The library was the backup if he didn’t know. He was a well educated engineer, and my grandmother also had a university education and an excellent knowledge of literature.
I wouldn’t mind killing off social media, but I have offline copies of Wikipedia for a reason. That shit is important.
I used to send emails to libraries for information on a certain topic and got back lots of information
Ah, the good old remantization of the things you don’t know.
If they’re so eager about it, they can try taking their hands off the phone, for change.
Doesn’t change expectations of others for you to respond to work emails or other shit at all hours. Doesn’t bring back the days of concert going paying attention instead of 800 phones being held up to record some shitty angle that will never be watched again, or people being rude while checking out, or distracted driving.
Doesn’t change expectations of others for you to respond to work emails or other shit at all hours.
That was still a thing before the internet/cellphones. My dad would receive phone calls at home at all hours back in the 90s and he was just a low level manager. He just pretended to not be home. When work gave him a cell phone, he would just turn it off when he left work and pretend his phone died.
But that doesn’t take away that other people will be on their phone when you’re with them
I have to wonder if the real discussion here is between ‘pre-internet’ or ‘not the internet where you’re the product being sold and sold to’, because I strongly suspect it’s the latter that’s the issue here.
I’m just barely old enough to recall how things worked before the internet and I don’t think people would ever really want to go back to not being able to watch anything they want, any time they want, or not having turn-by-turn directions or even things like ordering a pizza by having to call someone on the phone.
You hit the nail on the head. I don’t want to give up the data, I want to get rid of the constant advertising. Online life became much nicer once I set up my Pihole.
I was just thinking this earlier today. Life just seemed more simple.
most definitely. no expectation of being available 24/7.
I, for one, don’t miss waiting 2 hours to try and meet up with people who might have forgotten when or where we decided to meet up at, three weeks ago.
Imagine going on a road trip and getting stuck somewhere 3 hours from home with no cell phone
AT THE TONE THE TIME WILL BE 12:49 AND 50 SECONDS. BEEP!
No thanks. I like my internet time sync and GPS navigation.
What a stupid poll. I don’t see what the article wants me to think, but it was probably a couched question, considering the article explicitly links the Internet to pedophiles, criminals, and people who advocate abolishing democracy.
No mention of the good things that the ability to instantly communicate around the world means. Or a reminder of how stupid things were before the Internet. Like vacuum tubes at Lowe’s.
Even a 54 year old, the top age polled, has no idea what a world without Internet means, as they would have been in their early twenties as America Online was rolling out.
They probably expect it to be just a world where “Do Not Disturb” mode is enabled on their phones all the time while still having access to Netflix and credit card instant transactions and not balancing a checkbook.
