I absolutely love the internet. I pay for satellite internet so I can be sure that wherever I go, a battery and a laptop are all I need to stay connected. I can access the world's art, literature, science, history, the greatest and the trashiest works all at once. I can find out what's happening around me, I can look at historical weather data and learn about wave propagation, and then drive 200km to go surfing and be confident that I continue to remain attached to the virtual real-time sensor system and incredible brain extension that is this glorious information superhighway.
And then, when there's nothing more interesting at hand, I can explore a virtual world, or I git into a project and do some work, or... anything.
I can't take the title seriously when the author just seems to mean 'escapism'.
The most productive and enjoyable time in my adult life was when I had extremely poor/slow wifi at home, and high-speed internet available a bus-ride or long walk away.
Mininal distraction at home since there was no dopamine loop, but enough connectivity that I could load most things in a pinch if I absolutely needed to. Once or twice a week I would walk up to my Univerisity snd spend a few hours there, syncing backups, downloading YouTube videos and articles that seemed like they'd be worth watching, checking social media for an hour or two, etc.
Then back to my little room and a productive week ahead.
Unfortunately CoViD lockdowns in Melbourne destroyed this arrangement for me. It is something I'd like to return to at some point though.
I haven’t had the internet in my home for a couple years. Just really bad cell service. Occasionally maybe a couple times a week get on a high speed connection with a laptop to check email and messages. Sometimes may take a few hours if need to. It took some getting used to but it not being there to waste time on constantly allows me to do other things, mostly writing music.
It isn't really 'the internet' but it _is_ 'the internet' that many people interact with unless they put in effort to find niche spaces.
Any mainstream social media site is basically a trap designed to suck you into doomscrolling hell and a sense of permanent outrage and unease, and that goes for literally all of them.
The big YT creators are the political outrage ones - that's easy to miss if you mostly follow creator channels which have relatively tiny audiences. 'I left youtube playing videos about gaming and three hours later my entire feed is hitler enthusiasts' is a commonly expressed sentiment. That 'the algorithm' sucks people into extremism isn't widely argued, discord is well known as 'groomercord' for the same reason...
Even in the 'good old days' of usenet the fun clubby newsgroups where people would share their stories without being snarked at - because they were amongst friends - were massively outnumbered by the bottomless pits of snark and bitterness such as found on the average 'tech' group.
The greenspun forums were nice, but they were nice because, like here, some tireless mentor stepped in to call out those who got too snarky and carried away.
I really think it's something that just doesn't scale well.
> It isn't really 'the internet' but it _is_ 'the internet' that many people interact with unless they put in effort to find niche spaces.
Indeed, that was also my point. Learn to use something else than a smartphone and get away from mainstream social media. Go find ebooks or read history from a digital archive. Do open source. Write a blog. Or whatever.
Seriously, I feel the same way. As a former teacher, I remember when kids started having smart phones and you'd hear a notification go off in class. Other kids were like, "what was that?" The kid in question only wanted to look down and see what it said.
I soon started joking that the notification was saying, "YOU MATTER!" As if that student was so important that he/she/they could distract a class of 25-30 students.
Kind of like the first time I heard someone talking loudly in a college hallway on their cell phone. I thought it was such a social faux-pax.
Nowadays it's pretty normal for anyone to loudly talk that way to their phone. We only get concerned if there's no phone.
And then, when there's nothing more interesting at hand, I can explore a virtual world, or I git into a project and do some work, or... anything.
I can't take the title seriously when the author just seems to mean 'escapism'.