This is how I feel completely, having also grown up online all the way from BBSs onwards. I literally don't even have websites to visit any more. I get on my computer, scan hacker news for a bit, check twitter for a few minutes, scan some world news site, and thats it.
I still spend a lot of time programming (and thus a lot of time on the computer) but other than that, absolutely nothing appeals. Its a wasteland in my mind.
akersten 25 minutes ago [-]
I'm simultaneously hearing that the internet is more addicting than cigarettes to the point where multiple states are finding success levying gigantic fines on companies for having too good of a product, and also that the internet is boring and drab. Are we on two different internets? Is the author simply immune from the hypnosis of social media?
Anyway, the real internet is and always has been/will be smaller forums brought together by a common interest. Think back to the MMORPG private server communities of the 00's/10's. Kind of hacker news fits into that bucket today but even still a lot of the brainrotted brigading and average takes from reddit I'm seeing more often here (not calling out this post in particular; referring to the comment sections mostly).
CGamesPlay 3 minutes ago [-]
> Are we on two different internets? Is the author simply immune from the hypnosis of social media?
Yes; and either yes or the author is separating walled social network gardens from "the internet". The "real internet", as you say, is not the addictive algorithmic feeds.
I believe that the "real internet" you're talking about is larger than it's ever been, but the signal-to-noise ratio of the whole internet has been killed by even larger amounts of noise. So it's difficult to find these smaller forums and get involved with them.
ColdStream 21 minutes ago [-]
Cigarettes is a good analogy. It is both addictive but broadly doesn't really help out the individual consuming them.
Terr_ 12 minutes ago [-]
> more addicting than cigarettes [...] also boring and drab
That's not actually a contradiction.
With additions, it's quite common for someone to do $THING not because of any durable sense of happiness, but to "feel normal" because not doing it feels empty or wrong.
rockskon 21 minutes ago [-]
"Too good of a product" is an odd way to put it when you could apply the same logic to slot machines.
somenameforme 4 minutes ago [-]
Exactly the example I was going to use. People do not get addicted to things because those things are too enjoyable. Watching people who are addicted to slots is just depressing, they just sit there gloomily depositing every single penny they have - until they have nothing. They just have a compulsion to engage with the slots. Engage, engagement, the exact thing big tech has been trying to optimize for since day 1. It's always just been a euphemism for addiction, and they succeeded.
People report spending obscene amounts of time on social media while also saying that social media makes them feel worse. So captain obvious says why not just quit? Well that's because they're addicted to it. This is probably also why you see overwhelming support for age restrictions of social media, even amongst demographics that would otherwise be quite reluctant to give the government yet more power - people don't want their children to end up being another one of these stats.
smokel 2 minutes ago [-]
A ⊆ X ∧ p ∈ X ⇏ p ∈ A
King-Aaron 25 minutes ago [-]
> Learning about the world through 500-character snippets, or 30-second videos, is not a serious way to engage with knowledge. It triggers our worst instincts in terms of tribalism and groupthink and makes us intellectually lazy.
I can't agree more with this.
ColdStream 11 minutes ago [-]
Brevity is an art form, one that most do not have. Just because something is short doesn't mean it is bad so long as it is sculpted just right. 99.9999% of stuff nowadays is not sculpted it is just simplified for quick reactions.
NewJazz 6 minutes ago [-]
This is too simplistic. There are simply many many issues and topics that can't be adequately explained in a few minutes. E.g. complicated weather interactions like El nino / la nina, or economic concepts like externalities.
And furthermore, even if you can compress your information into a short period, the audience might not beable to successfully absorb the information at that rate.
There have been studies done on this finding short form content to be less effective for education.
King-Aaron 5 minutes ago [-]
While to some degree you are right, I disagree with your assertion that "Just because something is short doesn't mean it is bad so long as it is sculpted just right." When we are talking about distributing information, I agree more with the author that short hand content breeds tribalism and makes people lazy.
seydor 1 minutes ago [-]
you are correct, there is a difference between a hot take and a laconic statement.
the issue is with attention-seeking. Platforms willingly turn their forums to competition for likes, instead of encouraging compromise, which is what drives interesting discussions.
bblb 23 minutes ago [-]
Stop absorbing everything. Limit yourself.
agnishom 43 seconds ago [-]
Do you mean that they should [stop (absorbing everything)] and therefore absorb only _some_ things, or that they should [(stop absorbing) everything] and therefore absorb nothing?
overtone1000 8 minutes ago [-]
There is a point beyond which the probability of finding meaningful content is too low to justify the work required to find it. Beyond this point, limiting yourself means never trying.
The juice ain't worth the squeeze.
Bob_bo 6 minutes ago [-]
You should try chatting with a large language model—it's incredibly useful! The only thing is, I'm not sure if the answers it gives are actually correct.
sickophancy 21 minutes ago [-]
The problem isn't the internet but rather the sites that people use on it, and the monolithic nature of "social media".
Social media will be viewed as a failed experiment in the future.
ColdStream 18 minutes ago [-]
Social media is a race to the bottom. Who can make the most addictive platform possible while also preventing others from getting too much of a foot hold.
Also, the scale of the media they must process means 'the algorithm' is a feature not a bug. It was always going to devolve into echo chambers.
It is funny seeing writers from the 1950's through to the 2000's all figure out the horrors this would unleash even if they didn't have a clue on the specifics of the technology.
I agree it will be seen as a failure but I suspect it is only once it has a point of absolute devastation that it cannot be ignored any more. I don't know what that will look like or when but it will be horrible.
S3verin 19 minutes ago [-]
I always appreciate a good Disco Elysium reference.
ColdStream 34 minutes ago [-]
I with them on that. The internet is basically just infrastructure for email and some media like a podcast, otherwise the only reason I am here is because... well, I'm forced to be on a computer most of the week and not all of it is 'productive'. But after work, weekends, holidays I do not touch it.
__MatrixMan__ 10 minutes ago [-]
The internet is fine. It's the web that sucks now. It matters, because we can build a different web without throwing out the internet.
We'll have to walk away from the attention economy, that'll be a journey that each has to take singly, but we don't have to walk back to the 1980's. We can build something that works for communication, but that doesn't work for advertising: something structurally enshittificationproof. It will not attract investors, because there will be nothing to leverage. We'll have to build it because we want it, which has never been easier.
We can steganographically hide it in AI slop which no human has to actually ever see, and we can trick our enemies into hosting it for us for free. It might even be fun.
teekert 23 minutes ago [-]
I agree, but if we're being very honest I think the reason is just nostalgia. And I think that you can still find what you're looking for, but it's less in-your-face (as in; it's not a url on altavista.com).
We're older now, being young was great, we had infinite time to roam and discover and have nice things (and our first real six-string, and trying different things and not thinking about tomorrow). The youth nowadays also has infinite time, and they fill it in their own way. They like how things are, even though we don't like it and yearn for the days of yore.
It is the way of things.
GPerson 9 minutes ago [-]
Earlier today I saw that Tik Tok has 2 billion monthly active users and the average user uses it for 100 minutes a day. The app is so addictive that I feel it’s not right to say the user using it every day for 100 minutes at a time is enjoying themselves. To me this doesn’t look like an organic expression of the youth’s desire to explore and create in ways different from precious generations.
1/4th of the humans in the world (many of them youth) are mindlessly scrolling short form content for almost 2 hours a day (and this is just Tik Tok). That’s a problem!
teekert 7 minutes ago [-]
That's indeed true, I share your concern, and I think most will call 2 hr/day rookie numbers. But there is also youth out there that do things differently.
tayo42 18 minutes ago [-]
Pretty sure discord is the PHPbb of today. That seems to be the place where people's congregate and the communities are smaller.
ColdStream 5 minutes ago [-]
It does have that feeling still but one does get the sense that they are on the path toward aggressive monetization.
xvxvx 22 minutes ago [-]
Last week I finally deleted my LinkedIn account, the last social account I had. This week, I'm close to deleting my YouTube account. There's less content I want to see and more slop than ever. Apple Music is on the chopping block. These days, I only use it to preview vinyl records that catch my eye. Once my iPhone dies, I'm done with smartphones.
The internet had so much potential. Shame.
fhub 8 minutes ago [-]
At least with youtube you can turn off your watch history and a whole bunch of other things. Then proactively curate playlists. Cudos for Youtube for making it really easy to opt out of "the algorithm"
ColdStream 15 minutes ago [-]
I will say this with ditching the smart phone. I have done it but also gone back to it. But it is merely used for specific tasks. SMS, a camera, weather report, the occasional podcast or audio book. And that's about it. Things that are difficult to do on a flip phone but alright on a 'smart' phone.
I have said it many times. Look at the original iPhone presentation. It was a device that was very deliberate. It wasn't made to addict, it was made to be productive. Get in, do the thing you want and then move on. If only it stayed that way.
protocolture 13 minutes ago [-]
I really liked my Windows Phone, mostly because it didnt have apps on it.
Although it did have facebook, it was facebook delivered by Microsoft engineers and was missing a lot of features.
ColdStream 4 minutes ago [-]
I absolutely loved Windows Phone. It hit all the right notes on usability even if it didn't have the best app support.
Still bitter about that over a decade later.
sickophancy 20 minutes ago [-]
What's the rationale behind ditching musicapp? It just delivers files to you with some UI fluff on top.
ColdStream 2 minutes ago [-]
That is a fair take. Personally, I use my android basically an iPod. Only offline files via VLC.
Never hopped on the streaming bandwagon for anything but the most throw away stuff. Yes, I kept all my DVD's from decades back.
jdw64 6 minutes ago [-]
I think it's time for people to have their own homepages. Building and customizing a homepage is more fun than you'd think.
What's the main reason the internet feels less fun these days? I think it's because there are fewer people actually communicating. But wouldn't it be more fun if we communicated through homepages? Maybe someday there will be a community—a hub for people who have their own homepages—where only those with homepages can participate
forgetfreeman 24 minutes ago [-]
I am sick to death of the seemingly obligatory oh-but-im-all-in-on-ai disclaimer embedded in what is otherwise a (totally valid) critique of AI. Have the courage of your convictions already.
marsten 11 minutes ago [-]
I think most people see AI as an economic inevitability, immune to what any of us thinks. Why spend the time and energy making a reasoned critique if nobody has a real choice in the end? It's like railing against the concept of money or the existence of the mosquito.
Ouman 1 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
Rendered at 05:58:12 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I still spend a lot of time programming (and thus a lot of time on the computer) but other than that, absolutely nothing appeals. Its a wasteland in my mind.
Anyway, the real internet is and always has been/will be smaller forums brought together by a common interest. Think back to the MMORPG private server communities of the 00's/10's. Kind of hacker news fits into that bucket today but even still a lot of the brainrotted brigading and average takes from reddit I'm seeing more often here (not calling out this post in particular; referring to the comment sections mostly).
Yes; and either yes or the author is separating walled social network gardens from "the internet". The "real internet", as you say, is not the addictive algorithmic feeds.
I believe that the "real internet" you're talking about is larger than it's ever been, but the signal-to-noise ratio of the whole internet has been killed by even larger amounts of noise. So it's difficult to find these smaller forums and get involved with them.
That's not actually a contradiction.
With additions, it's quite common for someone to do $THING not because of any durable sense of happiness, but to "feel normal" because not doing it feels empty or wrong.
People report spending obscene amounts of time on social media while also saying that social media makes them feel worse. So captain obvious says why not just quit? Well that's because they're addicted to it. This is probably also why you see overwhelming support for age restrictions of social media, even amongst demographics that would otherwise be quite reluctant to give the government yet more power - people don't want their children to end up being another one of these stats.
I can't agree more with this.
And furthermore, even if you can compress your information into a short period, the audience might not beable to successfully absorb the information at that rate.
There have been studies done on this finding short form content to be less effective for education.
the issue is with attention-seeking. Platforms willingly turn their forums to competition for likes, instead of encouraging compromise, which is what drives interesting discussions.
The juice ain't worth the squeeze.
Social media will be viewed as a failed experiment in the future.
Also, the scale of the media they must process means 'the algorithm' is a feature not a bug. It was always going to devolve into echo chambers.
It is funny seeing writers from the 1950's through to the 2000's all figure out the horrors this would unleash even if they didn't have a clue on the specifics of the technology.
I agree it will be seen as a failure but I suspect it is only once it has a point of absolute devastation that it cannot be ignored any more. I don't know what that will look like or when but it will be horrible.
We'll have to walk away from the attention economy, that'll be a journey that each has to take singly, but we don't have to walk back to the 1980's. We can build something that works for communication, but that doesn't work for advertising: something structurally enshittificationproof. It will not attract investors, because there will be nothing to leverage. We'll have to build it because we want it, which has never been easier.
We can steganographically hide it in AI slop which no human has to actually ever see, and we can trick our enemies into hosting it for us for free. It might even be fun.
We're older now, being young was great, we had infinite time to roam and discover and have nice things (and our first real six-string, and trying different things and not thinking about tomorrow). The youth nowadays also has infinite time, and they fill it in their own way. They like how things are, even though we don't like it and yearn for the days of yore.
It is the way of things.
1/4th of the humans in the world (many of them youth) are mindlessly scrolling short form content for almost 2 hours a day (and this is just Tik Tok). That’s a problem!
The internet had so much potential. Shame.
I have said it many times. Look at the original iPhone presentation. It was a device that was very deliberate. It wasn't made to addict, it was made to be productive. Get in, do the thing you want and then move on. If only it stayed that way.
Although it did have facebook, it was facebook delivered by Microsoft engineers and was missing a lot of features.
Still bitter about that over a decade later.
Never hopped on the streaming bandwagon for anything but the most throw away stuff. Yes, I kept all my DVD's from decades back.