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How to stop being “terminally online”

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Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me think it might be similar to the "I don't watch TV" or "movies" or "sports" crowds. Just any pervasive cultural activity in which some don't participate but still carry on. I remember before I deleted my FB account (I've since created a new one), my buddy said to me that I'd be ok, just that I might be strongly disconnected from culture—not necessarily to tell me to not do it, but to be aware of the potentia…

I have no Facebook, Instagram, Snap, or any similar accounts. In casual converstation, I sometimes notice meme references or slang that I don't know, but that's about it. Not a big problem or loss IMO.

> In casual converstation, I sometimes notice meme references or slang that I don't know, but that's about it. Not a big problem or loss IMO.

It would be a loss if your cohort planned/converse using those methods of communication, and you valued doing things with that cohort.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#162

I'm struggling with it. I have a website blocker on my Mac, but then I just turn it off eventually and go back to old habits, if I block hacker news, reddit etc, then I end up just having random thoughts and googling those and finding other sites to read through and of course sometimes reddit can have the answer for the thing i needed to google, so that can be annoying. I changed to a white list to try and solve this…

People have had this problem figured out for a very long time and I guess there’s just been too much else going on on the internet so it’s been lost.

You’re the only really technical person in the house, you’re the only one who can block you from doing things you know are bad for you, so you set up the software to do it, and then you have your spouse or a really good friend change the password. Now you can’t get back in without talking to them first.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#163
post #2

One thing I've noticed about 'terminal online' is that people vastly underestimate how much it affects them. Myself included. It seems if I ever call out a loved one, whether my brother or wife or friend, for being on their phone too much, they immediately get defensive and argue they were just doing some one task. Even if this was initiated after them being zoned out for an hour or longer. And I've done the same whe…

>mom is too busy with Facebook again That sent shivers down my spine, wow.

Unfortunately it's not unusual: "I wish mum's phone was never invented"[0]

[0]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-44224319

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#164
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me think it might be similar to the "I don't watch TV" or "movies" or "sports" crowds. Just any pervasive cultural activity in which some don't participate but still carry on. I remember before I deleted my FB account (I've since created a new one), my buddy said to me that I'd be ok, just that I might be strongly disconnected from culture—not necessarily to tell me to not do it, but to be aware of the potentia…

Agreed partially. You have to question what "culture" are you missing on. I'm still on Facebook and let me tell you, you're not missing much in the culture department.

> I'm still on Facebook and let me tell you, you're not missing much in the culture department.

guy above you might have deleted his fb account in the early 2000s. right now, the culture isn't at fb, it's at places like reddit and 4chan.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#165
post #39

A lot of good questions to ask yourself here. But, > have you ever used/applied "internet slang" (cringe, based, cuck, chad) in/to real-life situations? I take slight issue with this one. To me, there is no difference between “internet slang” and just “slang”. The internet is ubiquitous and the language we use online and offline is largely the same now. Didn’t always be this way. I still remember the first time I hea…

I think I remember reading a Reddit post once about a girl whose boyfriend would say things in real life like "can we get some f's in the chat boys". Things that were clearly very niche and would either be completely unintelligible to the audience or at best sound out of place. I think it's a matter of reading the room.

Where I am, the F meme has pretty much become part of regular conversation, just like "lol". Granted, I exist in urbanized techie gen z spaces so ymmv.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a popular meme so you don't have to have played the game or even really be much of a gamer. You'd have come across it at some point hanging out on social media.

You may be surprised both by 1. how many people don’t “hang out” in social media culture, and only circulate on there with family and peers using everyday idioms and emoji/abbreviation; if they use social media at all, 2. how many different, disjoint online cultures there are. Many things widely circulated on reddit and adjacent communities may never surface on some FB mom’s group People maintain much more different…

It's pretty safe to assume that almost all of genz and gen alpha has come across the "F" meme at least once. Can't say about older folk.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#167
I think barring especially extreme cases this is just the "television is ruining the world" of our generation. I'd describe myself as terminally online as I spend most of my time using the internet in some form.

Regarding use of internet slang, there's the fact that the Covid lockdowns helped accelerate a pretty massive shift in how we interact even with people we can meet in-person. Unless you're living with someone, the bulk of interactions with them are probably going to be online. Then, since you're online you end up using internet slang, which gradually bleeds into regular speech. There is nothing wrong with this.

There's also the issue that you're going to want to share your hobbies with people, which is hard without the internet if your hobby is kind of niche. Most of my hobbies are very niche, I have only ever known 1 person irl and 3 people online who had a similar enough set of hobbies. Even programming and working with electronics, which started as a hobby for me when I was 13-14, only developed because of the ability to find like-minded people online, away from my irl 'friend' group who only saw it as something to make fun of me for and parents who didn't believe in anything but schoolwork and perfect grades.

Overall, this post seems to be based on the assumption that people who are terminally online haven't put thought into their lives or that it's wrong to be okay with it. I can still unplug when having an interaction irl which I think is sufficiently important like with family (although somewhat ironically, the only way for me to interact with my family over the past 2 years was over the internet), but simultaneously, most of the people I enjoy talking to and can deeply relate to are only accessible online.

I get the impression that to the author, "terminally online" is equivalent to being someone who spends all their time getting into heated political arguments on Reddit and Twitter. While I did go through that phase too, I realized how unhappy it was making me and the solution wasn't disconnecting but rather identifying sources of bad content and disengaging. I got rid of all the default subs on Reddit, sticking only to ones related to my hobbies and being very selective about following more subs, same with Twitter. I also got much more selective about replying to things (eg I'll usually just ignore replies to my posts which I feel might devolve into an argument). The result was that the content that made me "ragescroll" went away and I got happier.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#168
post #133
post #39

A lot of good questions to ask yourself here. But, > have you ever used/applied "internet slang" (cringe, based, cuck, chad) in/to real-life situations? I take slight issue with this one. To me, there is no difference between “internet slang” and just “slang”. The internet is ubiquitous and the language we use online and offline is largely the same now. Didn’t always be this way. I still remember the first time I hea…

During the piratebay trial, one of the founders got a question about if he had met someone IRL. He replied with that they don't use that expression but AFK (away from keyboard) instead. Becuase IRL (in real life) suggests that internet is not real life, but it is. What we do online effects our every day life even when we are offline. I thought that was very sane thinking

When you are running the Pirate Bay the internet is real life, and it also is when you have a business, but when you are on an MMORPG or Twitter it is real life to a much lesser degree. How can we distinguish between them? Well, the majority of relationships made on MMORPGs or Twitter go nowhere outside the platform, and the things that people discuss on them also tend to not involve anything that will still be there when the person logs off. That creates a pocket universe (with a few exceptions, I think some people have met their spouses on MMORPGs) unrelated to the real one. Operating Pirate Bay, or even talking about Linux kernel drivers on IRC, doesn't meet that criteria of being separate from real life.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a popular meme so you don't have to have played the game or even really be much of a gamer. You'd have come across it at some point hanging out on social media.

You may be surprised both by 1. how many people don’t “hang out” in social media culture, and only circulate on there with family and peers using everyday idioms and emoji/abbreviation; if they use social media at all, 2. how many different, disjoint online cultures there are. Many things widely circulated on reddit and adjacent communities may never surface on some FB mom’s group People maintain much more different…

I was just pointing out that knowledge of the meme wasn't as obscure as having actually played the game, which would be a much more limited audience than even just reddit users.

Re: How to stop being “terminally online”

#170

I hate to throw a purely negative comment up as a naked response to a post, but this is really just a contemptful screed about people engaging in online interactions the author doesn't jibe with. It's not even like they're presenting their opinion to elicit other perspectives-- it's presented as an objective list of unhealthy habits and patronizing instructions to align your behavior with the author's values and prio…

This is the problem with framing the problem of online harms as an aspect of individual morality. Blaming the victim isn't helpful, nor is excusing the victim on the grounds that the activities aren't immoral.
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