A rare violation of Betteridge's law of headlines
Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
11–20 of 71 posts
Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
#12When the world was smaller, it was easier for people to get together and find common interests. I'll never forget gathering around the coffee pot or water cooler with friends at work. "Did you see Seinfeld or Friends last night?" There's nothing like this any more. Nobody listens or watches to the same things. The net effect is...I'm tired. Just so tired.
If I was still watching reruns of The Office and Parks & Rec, they'd have put me on SSRIs by now.
Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
#13Before the internet we mostly talked to friends. With the internet we mostly talk to strangers.
We used to have conversations. Now we have fights.
I was very idealistic when I first came to social media. Very kind. Since then I have picked up some bad habits.
It's something I'm passing through. I see an end.
This is probably a familiar story.
Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
#14When the world was smaller, it was easier for people to get together and find common interests. I'll never forget gathering around the coffee pot or water cooler with friends at work. "Did you see Seinfeld or Friends last night?" There's nothing like this any more. Nobody listens or watches to the same things. The net effect is...I'm tired. Just so tired.
The internet is making everyone feel like what most of us nerds used to feel like. Good riddance, I’d say
As another nerd who grew up on the rural side of my country, the internet was a huge blessing and once we first got our first modem in our house I finally got to experience how it felt to talk to people who cared about the same things as me.
I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
#15When the world was smaller, it was easier for people to get together and find common interests. I'll never forget gathering around the coffee pot or water cooler with friends at work. "Did you see Seinfeld or Friends last night?" There's nothing like this any more. Nobody listens or watches to the same things. The net effect is...I'm tired. Just so tired.
The good:
The internet enabled access to a wider diversity of cultures.
The bad (I think?): Culture decoupled from geography, which makes it harder to connect with local community.
The ugly: The attention economy optimizes for what is novel and upsetting, with a second order consequence of biasing culture to perceive everything in upsetting ways, even when it doesn't need to or benefit from that perspective. So culture as a whole has been biased towards pessimistic rituals and values.
Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
#16> The 20th century, apparently, was the last time we had great art, literature, or music.
this is totally absurd. I'm in middle age and the golden era of music for me is the late aughts, mostly bedroom recordings that never would have seen the light of day in the age of MTV.
I might agree with the thesis of the piece overall but it's hard to continue after such an obviously asinine statement
Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
#17When the world was smaller, it was easier for people to get together and find common interests. I'll never forget gathering around the coffee pot or water cooler with friends at work. "Did you see Seinfeld or Friends last night?" There's nothing like this any more. Nobody listens or watches to the same things. The net effect is...I'm tired. Just so tired.
I dunno. I am on a discord server with a bunch of people who share theories and lament the cancellation of Raised By Wolves. Expecting people in the office to be able to talk about that show is too much to expect. Also, I no longer go to an office anyways. Things are different than say 20 years ago.
It's very different to discuss interests online rather than in person. Especially for people who didn't grow up online. This is part of the question about culture I think. Is shifting culture to the internet making things worse?
I don't know, but I can see why some people might think so.
Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
#18Culture isn't getting worse, it's getting further and further towards what the masses want. Throughout history very few people got a voice about what culture was created or offered.
In the 1700s, the culture that was created targeted the people who could pay for it: the aristocracy and the very richest of wealthy merchants (people who could afford to be patrons). Culture targeted them.
In the early 1900s, the people who paid for culture were the upper middle class, because they were the people that advertisers wanted to reach. Culture targeted them and appealed to people with college educations (the types who enjoy cultural criticism).
Today, the culture that gets clicks and views is the culture that appeals to the broad masses. The broad masses do not appreciate the cultural criticism of the (college educated) upper middle class. If you want to know what they enjoy, go browse reddit's /r/all. It's not the village voice.
Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
#19Before the internet we mostly talked to friends. With the internet we mostly talk to strangers. We used to have conversations. Now we have fights. I was very idealistic when I first came to social media. Very kind. Since then I have picked up some bad habits. It's something I'm passing through. I see an end. This is probably a familiar story.
> It's something I'm passing through. I see an end.
More than once I've said that when I retire I'm removing all computers from my life, and I'm not always kidding when I say it.
Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
#20When the world was smaller, it was easier for people to get together and find common interests. I'll never forget gathering around the coffee pot or water cooler with friends at work. "Did you see Seinfeld or Friends last night?" There's nothing like this any more. Nobody listens or watches to the same things. The net effect is...I'm tired. Just so tired.
When the world was smaller, it was harder for people to get together with their common interests. There wasn't anyone around the coffee pot or water cooler who I could talk to about the shows or music I liked.
Thankfully, nowadays I can find people from all around the world who listen and watch the same things as me.
The net effect is...Such a relief.