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7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

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Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#131

Post by ornornor »

slg wrote: post #113
random5634 wrote: post #76

I used to work in the Caribbean when internet there was ridiculously expensive. Local social life was fantastic - I missed nothing about the internet. Also - I missed nothing about not keeping up to date on latest news - locals just didn't care what was going on for the most part - the latest "outrages" were 100% irrelevant. If you went to bar at night, and IF they had a TV on, it was sports. So you'd come back to th…

Life is certainly less stressful if you ignore all the terrible things... unless a terrible thing happens to you and everyone ignores you.

Otoh 99% (exaggeration for emphasis but not that far off if you think about it) of what happens in the “news” is totally irrelevant to you and your life beyond the initial outrage it provokes. You have virtually no impact on preventing or influencing the event and it has no impact on you whatsoever. War in Africa again? It’s sad to think about and outrageous how some scummy warlords terrorize the local population, but what’s the impact on your life? Tsunami in Asia? Terrible for all the death but no impact on your daily life. Corruption in Europe again? Revolting but... all these things just add to your overall unhappiness and stress but really have no bearing on your actual day to day life. So why even bother? Not too mention that nedia and news outlets can have a hidden agenda they’re pushing either because the entity that owns them wants to promote a particular view of the world or because they want people to look away from something else.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#132

Post by watwut »

random5634 wrote: post #98
ramraj07 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always bring up how people in Fiji or the Carribean are so happy and not stressed, and I’m not sure what the message is. Of course if you just want to relax and not worry too much about what you want to accomplish in life then yeah go to some corner of the world and live happily? However for a lot of people that’s not what they want out of their lives; they want it to mean something in their own way. Of course…

I think instead of saying it's relaxed, I would describe it as very local? Folks work pretty hard in Caribbean, but when I was there (a fair while ago), I also worked dang hard. But you absolutely felt like you were in a bubble. You really could imagine that Israel and the Palestinians would have an intifada / war and no one would notice. You drank after work with the folks you worked with (in west this is a no no fo…

> There is a story (probably made up - please fill in correct details) that a group "conquered" one of the islands (maybe Saba?). They took over whatever building, raised whatever flag. And everyone just ignored them. They eventually left.

I would guess it made up, because when people conquer stuff, they tend to have actual material goals and need. Starting from basic - their army needs to eat. The way you get that food is to take it from people who are there. They need wood and what not, if you are the armed one, you force local population to get it for you. When people used to run from incoming armies, it was not for fun. It was because the armed men tend not to ignore you.

The miracle there is not island people ignoring incoming people. The miracle there is the supposed conquerors being content with raising flag, without trying to take actual benefit from it. I guess in some rare situations they would conquer thing for trolling/emotional purposes, but generally the goal is control and things.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#133

Post by ornornor »

Lammy wrote: post #34
xkeysc0re wrote: post #20

Honestly, I wish I could stop using the internet. I make a lot of things and enjoy sharing them because other people might find them useful. It has often led to wonderful and inspiring conversations. Yet it's obvious there's something very very wrong happening with American culture that began around the time of social media platform consolidation. "Being online" entails a distinct mindset and attitude that is incompa…

I've lost a few very good friends due to this. In-person and online interactions with the same person would vary wildly in tone and emotional intensity, like speaking to two entirely different people. The online interactions always pushed us apart, and the in-person interactions never failed to mend things, but of course those stopped happening over the previous year. I have to assume it's the same way with me toward…

That subreddit is rather impressive. Some of the comments don’t seem to make too much sense (as in they’re grammatically correct but devoid of overall meaning) but it’s pretty convincing none the less. And if you’re not aware that it’s generated, your brain tries a bit harder to read meaning into the comments which make it quite convincing. Very impressive.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#134

Post by simion314 »

slg wrote: post #113
random5634 wrote: post #76

I used to work in the Caribbean when internet there was ridiculously expensive. Local social life was fantastic - I missed nothing about the internet. Also - I missed nothing about not keeping up to date on latest news - locals just didn't care what was going on for the most part - the latest "outrages" were 100% irrelevant. If you went to bar at night, and IF they had a TV on, it was sports. So you'd come back to th…

Life is certainly less stressful if you ignore all the terrible things... unless a terrible thing happens to you and everyone ignores you.

I am not from US , so please don't try to interpret my comment as some US politic stuff.

I do not watch or read news daily, so when I went in a vacation at the hotel I had nothing else better to do then open the TV. There was some big outrage that the president mumbled something racist(he was inside a car and people were lips reading) - again not in US. I realized what I was missing by not watching TV, I am ignoring all the useless drama. The other part of the news that is not politics is also mostly irrelevant crap.

The thing is that there is almost nothing we can do as individuals, elections are 4 years apart and sometimes people organize and manage to change the prime minister with big protests but that is when something so big happened that even I knew about it.

What could work much better is a weekly summary that ignores things that happened this week, so it will be like a filter for minor stuff and all the events reported would have been better digested and all involved parties would have had the time to respond.

There are some rare events that should not be ignored, and this are large enough that will surface, a local example is this incident that eventualy caused protests, some resignations but probably nothing actually major changed to improve safety(unfortunately we have a few horrible incidents related with fire) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colectiv_nightclub_fire

The opposite of that I do would be me having to read or watch 3 different reports on same maybe relevant stuff and decide what is my favorite interpretation.

Add on top of that the propaganda by US to start their wars by fabricating stuff, now when I read some report about 1 million people in camps in China I will always have a doubt the numbers and facts are real, or the interview with persons could be fabricated, so with news from far away is double pointless to be on top daily, is nothing you can do about it today so it can wait a week and you can never be sure it is not manipulation.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#135

Post by sonthonax »

I think a lot of people just don’t like the internet that much. My girlfriend certainly wouldn’t use the internet given the choice, she’s in her mid 20s, with a postgrad degree from a top uni, but really only checks her email once every two days.

It’s not just exclusive to old people. There is a cadre of young people who think that the internet is just stupid noise. You obviously just don’t hear from them much.

I’m not quite as extreme as her, but I don’t have any social media and I use the internet nearly only for work. Hacker news is the only thing I really comment on.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#136

Post by daniellarusso »

gfxgirl wrote: post #55
throwawayboise wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching TV via the internet is not really "using" the internet IMO. I mean it is, but it's just the protocol on the wire. Otherwise it's not really different from when your TV was connected to an antenna or cable.

It is different. It's as different as books+magazines vs the internet. TV on the internet (ie, video) has basically an infinite supply. I couldn't binge 70hrs of Game of Thrones followed by 70 hours of Breaking Bad before "TV on the internet" nor could I watch an endless number of documentaries and tutorials on youtube.

Growing up, my friend’s parents literally had 100s of VHS tapes, of many TV series and movies they had dubbed.

There was always something to watch.

Of course, you had to physically be at their house.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#137

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

marlor wrote: post #106
_delirium wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found I had to get rid of a decent portion of the news too, and news-adjacent comedy shows like Colbert. It's not enough to personally not read FB/Twitter, since they have gotten so integrated into mainstream media. Maybe 10 years ago you could just ignore social media, but by 2018 (when I started making an effort to avoid it), you could end up seeing thousands of tweets without ever using twitter yourself, if you…

Getting rid of “newstainment” and 24-hour news programs significantly improved the quality and breadth of the news I consume. By just reading a quality daily newspaper and a couple of newsmagazines, I’m better informed than when I was a news junkie with cable news on in the background and news websites refreshing on my phone. “Breaking news” is broken. Print media, especially weekly newsmagazines, have the luxury of…

Which print media do you recommend?

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#138

Post by t8e56vd4ih »

ramraj07 wrote: post #86
random5634 wrote: post #76

I used to work in the Caribbean when internet there was ridiculously expensive. Local social life was fantastic - I missed nothing about the internet. Also - I missed nothing about not keeping up to date on latest news - locals just didn't care what was going on for the most part - the latest "outrages" were 100% irrelevant. If you went to bar at night, and IF they had a TV on, it was sports. So you'd come back to th…

People always bring up how people in Fiji or the Carribean are so happy and not stressed, and I’m not sure what the message is. Of course if you just want to relax and not worry too much about what you want to accomplish in life then yeah go to some corner of the world and live happily? However for a lot of people that’s not what they want out of their lives; they want it to mean something in their own way. Of course…

> then yeah go to some corner of the world and live happily? However for a lot of people that’s not what they want out of their lives

if i just knew where that corner is ...

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#139

Post by selcuka »

sonthonax wrote: post #135

I think a lot of people just don’t like the internet that much. My girlfriend certainly wouldn’t use the internet given the choice, she’s in her mid 20s, with a postgrad degree from a top uni, but really only checks her email once every two days. It’s not just exclusive to old people. There is a cadre of young people who think that the internet is just stupid noise. You obviously just don’t hear from them much. I’m n…

Internet is not only email or social media though. I am curious if she doesn't like using any online resources for her studies, or for personal curiosity either.

Re: 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

#140

Post by helsinkiandrew »

random5634 wrote: post #76

I used to work in the Caribbean when internet there was ridiculously expensive. Local social life was fantastic - I missed nothing about the internet. Also - I missed nothing about not keeping up to date on latest news - locals just didn't care what was going on for the most part - the latest "outrages" were 100% irrelevant. If you went to bar at night, and IF they had a TV on, it was sports. So you'd come back to th…

My first thought was that 7% of the population are disenfranchised from News and services. But second thought makes me wonder how much of the 93% are just reading celebrity gossip and poor quality news on Twitter and Facebook or TikTok/Instagram reels of cute pets.

If over 65 year olds count for half of the 7% (25% of 50Million), does poor rural internet and poverty count for a lot of the rest.

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