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Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?

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Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?

#21

Post by xp84 »

quacked wrote: post #6

One thing I noticed while I was reading NASA engineer Allan MacDonald's book about the Challenger accident he tried and failed to prevent was that every time he came into contact with a member of the news media, there was a sense of skilled elitism about the practice of their craft. I started looking back on other nonfiction depictions of the times before the 1990s, and I was struck not only by the amount of elitism…

This is interesting, but can you expound on this thesis a little? What are the reasons you suspect and what are the implications of this shift?

Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?

#22

Post by embedding-shape »

rootusrootus wrote: post #7
supportengineer wrote: post #2

When 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.

Yeah, I sometimes miss the way we socialized in the 80s and 90s. I was an early adopter of the Internet myself, and it was really awesome for a while. But what it has turned into now ... I can't shake the feeling that it is definitely a net negative, we would be better off forgetting it ever existed.

> But what it has turned into now

For me it's been the same as always, I'm able to connected with others that have the same niche interests as me, wherever they are in the world, and I'm eternally grateful for it existing.

Everything new always end up being "less useful" or "actively harmful" to some people once it's exposed to the real world, but that doesn't mean there is a large part of us that benefit from it many ways it regardless. I grew up in a rural place where no one cared about the same things as me, and once we got the internet for the first time, it was like a whole new world opened up. I still feel like this today.

But even so, others get pulled into it, or spit out of it, and they get harmed. And it sucks, ideally nothing should harm others. But it seems unavoidable that it does, even the bestest of tools with the bestest intentions will be misused by people, to harm themselves or to harm others. Maybe human nature just sucks.

Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?

#23

Post by reaperducer »

supportengineer wrote: post #2

When 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 think what you're describing is that we used to have more common experiences.

When Seinfeld was on, there were far fewer video options, and very few high quality ones.

Just like how before there were hundreds of thousands of radio stations, most were "full service," so you were exposed to things you didn't necessarily like or want (farm news, blues, morning chat shows). But you were aware that they existed and shared an experience with people who did like them.

Even when radio started fragmenting, I think of the 80's, we all listened to each other's music. If you listen to reruns of American Top 40 on Sirius, you'll hear a disco song followed by an R&B song, followed by a rock song followed by an oldies song followed by a soul song followed by a folk song.

Today, very often people silo themselves into a single genre, or even subgenre, of music, and anything else is "other" and bad.

The internet enables the hyper-optimization of media (music, video, games, sports, politics), which drives us apart, rather than brings us together. And big tech companies are happy to carve out personalized echo chambers for each of us to wallow in.

Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?

#24

Post by jonway »

supersour wrote: post #10

If this article resonates with you in even the smallest way, I urge you to read Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business". I am currently re-reading this book and am amazed by the apparent accuracy of his analysis, which is that the mediums in which we communicate or express information (print vs. TV vs. TikTok) have a massively understated role in the quality and type…

Yes!

There are related works: The Medium is the Message and the television program https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFwVCHkL-JU

"A medium is not something neutral. It does something to people."

and The Society of the Spectacle. When I reread this, I was alarmed at how applicable it is today.

Problems: We don't really have any remedy. We can see if we look, but what to do?

Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?

#26

Post by flatline »

RajT88 wrote: post #5
supportengineer wrote: post #2

When 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.

I think this is a salient counterpoint. While I value online interactions, I also don’t want them to be my predominant form of socialization. That works well for some people, less well for others, but it’s increasingly becoming the de facto mode of bonding with people over common interests. Because, you know, you can find that group of people really into the same thing you are. I also work from home full time and it requires a lot of continual work on my part to get my social needs met - sometimes impossible if I’m tired from working a full week.

Surely there is some middle ground. When we don’t have anything in common with our real life counterparts, there’s an issue. Likewise if we are forced to exclusively socialize with people we have nothing in common with. I feel like we’re on a pendulum swing where online interactions are taking over everything, and I’m hoping that swings back to some extent, but not to the thing we had before.

Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?

#27

Post by reaperducer »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #20
supportengineer wrote: post #2

When 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.

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.

That was a feature, not a bug. You broadened your knowledge, and did the same for the people you talked with.

Compulsive navel-gazing is not healthy, individually, or for society.

Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?

#28

Post by [deleted] »

quacked wrote: post #6

One thing I noticed while I was reading NASA engineer Allan MacDonald's book about the Challenger accident he tried and failed to prevent was that every time he came into contact with a member of the news media, there was a sense of skilled elitism about the practice of their craft. I started looking back on other nonfiction depictions of the times before the 1990s, and I was struck not only by the amount of elitism…

[deleted]

Re: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?

#29

Post by miyuru »

cjs_ac wrote: post #3
supportengineer wrote: post #2

When 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.

Exactly: there's still great culture being created, somewhere out there; it's just unable to find its audience amongst the noise.

there are some small sub reddits and forums dedicated to niche topics.

stumbling into great forums and blogs while searching for something is a rare thing now.

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