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In the last 5-10 years has the net grown or shrunk to yous? I'm not talking about the amount of people being connected but the amount of places you go. Are the social networks helping people be creative or making them less? When you first started using the net is the now of things like what you envisioned now to be like? Is that a good thing? is that a bad thing?

Man, good topic. I'm an older dude who remembers life before internet. I don't have internet at my home but have access via my phone anytime. I do this to try and limit myself. But I'm still on it all the time. A friend and I did a test a few years ago and blocked ourselves from the internet for a week except for emails for work. I recall having more vivid dreams for that week.

The internet is great and it's never going to stop, I just try to get what I want out of ot these days. And there's so much to gain or get out of it. But I don't like having to spend that much time looking at a screen. For me it's about balance. I lived just fine before it but it sucks not having it. It's a weird topic as the ages of members on the forum are broad. I also don't do cable tv anymore as it is the same thing to me as in wasting time, if that makes sense...

LaoWiz wrote: I'm an older dude who remembers life before internet.

Yeah I'm in the same situation. Life before all this technology was so much better in some regards. Now I think we seem to depend on it too much. I like having the internet but it doesn't seem to bother me when I don't have it. Except when it comes to internet shopping. Being miles away from town it is hard to buy pedals and other gear without the net. The closest town is half an hour away and even then doesn't even have a music shop. So the net is good in that regard. Same with mobile phones. I don't really give a rats arse if I didn't have one but it is handy in an emergency.
There are kids out there that suffer extreme amounts of stress without their technology. They need to learn to cope because if the shit hits the fan in a major way they will be fucked.
As far as creativity I think we are much more creative when we use our imagination. The net is just good to hear what others are doing. But not good if we want to tread our own path.

#ilovetheinternet #internet4ever #longdistanceratesareexpensive #callafter7 #sexting #sexting4ever

Isn't that a blood on the dancefoor song?

I kinda liked it when the internet was a wild west of information and socialising in kinda restricted forms, with BBs, forums, curated collections of pages (getting different results if you searched with Yahoo or Hot bot or Alta Vista). I think ILF is really quite old school, in that it's not integrated with any other platform, it's just a forum. It allows you to be as anonymous as you like, or not, and if you want to interact with someone you have to actively go and do it - post a or write something or whatever.

I can really see the advantages of the more modern internet, with big data opening massive possibilities, but I've never really fallen for the whole social media thing. The way it is getting increasingly complex, with links between a multitude of different platforms, and how your behaviour on those platform/s interacts with commercial interests is not something I've really gotten into. And it seems that the modern Internet is getting further and further down that path.

I don't think the Internet should have stopped at Netscape Navigator and usenets, forums and low res JPEGs, but I think it had a more idealistic character once upon a time that has morphed in a way that I haven't been able to follow - I can't even say if that anarchic free streak is there anymore in the modern Internet because I don't really use it in a modern way at all. But my gut says that it's disappeared somewhere in the integration of social media and the need for behavioural information for commercial ends.

Um... did that make sense?
I 'm a little worried rereading the above... I have nothing against companies making money, nor using data to create better user experiences/products etc. That's a whole different discussion. What I dislike is the internet's inextricable interweaving with that reality, whereas once it was a very separate entity, and I think that separation has/had a value in itself.

Agreed, dude. You said it better than I could have.
I also have to say that I miss meeting people in games and actually having conversations with them via text while playing. Things felt more communal when you could see others chatting instead of everyone being isolated to their group's voice server.
I used to be able to go more than an hour without being called a "faggot" as well, as I recall...

The shortest, most simple answer I can provide:

I find I spend more time on the internet, but accomplish much less.

I liked Geocities better than Facebutt.

The web has become homogenized.

The Internet has been around my whole life (I'm 18), although I was somewhat restricted by my parents and didn't really use it much at all until 5/6 years ago
But I'm fully dependant on it
I would like to be less dependant
But I think with the internet, like with everything, it's inherently neutral, it's just a tool and it only has value depending on how you use it

For me, it has grown. I also remember life before the Internet, we got our first modem when I was a sophomore in HS. From then until around 2006 or so, the internet was something I just kinda random tromped around every now and then, but it wasn't a huge part of my life. But it all changed for me with Wikipedia and Twitter. Those 2 sites were huge for me and made it so I am a lot more informed about the world around me, and make me give a shit a lot more about things. I pretty much get all of my news from Twitter, and just from clicking on links in my twitter feed, I go to so many more sites than I used to, and connect with a lot more people and things. I personally dig where the Internet has gone. It's a lot less chaotic, and easier to get shit done and inform yourself.

I feel like the net's gotten wider, but shallower for most people.
Like we got online 20 years ago when I was 4, and the web was this inconceivably deep fucking rabbit hole of a thing.
For like 10 years after that would dive into all sorts of weird corners.
Now it's lost the mystique and sense of nerdy adventure (don't need to get involved in no weird ass shit) so it's just lazy routine and aggregates.

I have to hit the sack soon, so I don't have time to read everything right now. BUT, I want to get my two cents in, because certain "net issues" are pissing me off right now.

The internet is great because of all the information you can get, anytime you want. It also makes keeping in touch with long distance people easier, as well as making new friends (youz gaiz ) and making new business ventures, etc etc.

What's been pissing me off is how fast bad information can spread. All it takes is one blogger with a soapbox and a catchy headline, and all of a sudden a little thing is a HUGE thing. It also makes it much easier for people to polarize issues that have a lot of grey area (like most do) as well as make more bad decisions based on their ideology or the ideology of their peers, instead of the evidence which is literally at their fingertips via google. I also don't like general ADD it infects people with. I'm trying desperately to not constantly check Facebook (or here, sorry) so I can spend more quality time being focused on what counts, like actually getting some music done for once.

I think the interest made a true peak around 2007/2008 and has severely declined since then. Content was able to be freely shared, the original concepts have quite shaped how everyone uses the web. From something as basic as flash cartoons, they were simple in nature because most people couldn't even stream a video efficiently even 5 years ago. Our video resolution has practically tripled in quality over the past 4 years. Social media was insanely popular without being over saturated like it is now. What's worse now is the mass advertizing and complete and utter shame that logging into eBay once a week leaves a bloodier IP trail to be tracked than a murder scene. You can say that if you do nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide, though the issue isn't being stalked - it is that it is so easy for anyone to get your information. I may be a regular jack-off but is someone with enough technical skill singled me out then they could easily find my banking details, home address and find out when I am inactive online. Mobile phones are the least secure piece of technology, but for some reason has every scrap of information about you just waiting to be accessed.

I can also kind of see a pseudo 'Stand Alone Complex' concept being somewhat realistic, there's a staggeringly high amount of young kids that are hearing about the I.S. and think that its acceptable to threaten kids of another race and creed because they've read bad information online. You see facebook hate groups that exist purely to inflame serious issues. Stupid people are going to act like morons regardless of what technology they have, sure, but it just adds in another catalyst for unnecessary trauma. I don't hang out on gaming forums just because I don't jive with the pseudo intellectualism of people with zero industry experience tell everyone that they know how to run a company or the nonsense of the clashing between 'Social Justice Warriors' and the ignorant. Then people still thrash about EA again, like they actually care.

The internet, I think is the most useful tool man has created, it has allowed to many great things to thrive and be created. I just disappoints me that it has been misused by so many.

I may have been playing too much Deux Ex but we still shouldn't be living in a parody.

goroth wrote:I kinda liked it when the internet was a wild west of information and socialising in kinda restricted forms, with BBs, forums, curated collections of pages (getting different results if you searched with Yahoo or Hot bot or Alta Vista). I think ILF is really quite old school, in that it's not integrated with any other platform, it's just a forum. It allows you to be as anonymous as you like, or not, and if you want to interact with someone you have to actively go and do it - post a or write something or whatever.

I can really see the advantages of the more modern internet, with big data opening massive possibilities, but I've never really fallen for the whole social media thing. The way it is getting increasingly complex, with links between a multitude of different platforms, and how your behaviour on those platform/s interacts with commercial interests is not something I've really gotten into. And it seems that the modern Internet is getting further and further down that path.

I don't think the Internet should have stopped at Netscape Navigator and usenets, forums and low res JPEGs, but I think it had a more idealistic character once upon a time that has morphed in a way that I haven't been able to follow - I can't even say if that anarchic free streak is there anymore in the modern Internet because I don't really use it in a modern way at all. But my gut says that it's disappeared somewhere in the integration of social media and the need for behavioural information for commercial ends.

Um... did that make sense?
I 'm a little worried rereading the above... I have nothing against companies making money, nor using data to create better user experiences/products etc. That's a whole different discussion. What I dislike is the internet's inextricable interweaving with that reality, whereas once it was a very separate entity, and I think that separation has/had a value in itself.

Truth! From a dinosaur in a suit... Let's start a cult, we're gonna be the new mormons.