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The internet

Are modern communication and info devices causing contemporary insanity?


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LiberalAvenger

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There is a new book out about the internet and how it is ****ing up our brains.

excerpt

I think the internet and other modern communication devices are making us lose much of our own reasoning abilities.
 

Wiseone

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If we didnt have the internet to vent all of our asshole-ish snobbery all over other people's asshole-ish snobbery we'd all probably go insane.
 

tacomancer

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I came up with a long and well thought out reply but since, thanks to the internet, I have the attention span of a fruitfly, it turned into song lyrics.
 

Gipper

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The HAL 9000 computer was born, or “made operational,” as HAL himself humbly put it, on January 12, 1992, in a mythical computer plant in Urbana, Illinois. I was born almost exactly thirty-three years earlier, in January of 1959, in another midwestern city, Cincinnati, Ohio. My life, like the lives of most Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, has unfolded like a two-act play. It opened with Analogue Youth and then, after a quick but thorough shuffling of the props, it entered Digital Adulthood

End thread. Internet scares old people, as does anything new.
 

Gardener

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The word I might choose wouldn't be "cause" so much as "reveal". The internet reveals much of our animus by stripping away some of the social conventions inhibiting such when face to face. I also see it as a vector for spreading hate, as memes are passed from one to another that would also be inhibited to some degree otherwise.

The internet is our tower of babble.
 

Cold Highway

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I dont think its making people lose their reasoning abilities, if anything it encourages people to seek information for themselves instead of relying on older methods of communication.
 

LiberalAvenger

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Even the libraries are being destroyed by the internet or should I say the overuse of the internet? The last time I went to a library no one was reading or looking for a book. Books, wtf are books?
 

Gina

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The bond between book reader and book writer has always been a tightly symbiotic one, a means of intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization. The words of the writer act as a catalyst in the mind of the reader, inspiring new insights, associations, and perceptions, sometimes even epiphanies. And the very existence of the attentive, critical reader provides the spur for the writer’s work. It gives the author the confidence to explore new forms of expression, to blaze difficult and demanding paths of thought, to venture into uncharted and sometimes hazardous territory. “All great men have written proudly, nor cared to explain,” said Emerson. “They knew that the intelligent reader would come at last, and would thank them.” . .

How does the internet change any of that? The media of communication is evolving away from print, but I don't see how the method of delivery should effect how the reader deals with the information consumed. Weird. The internet makes thanking the author more likely and easily accomplished.


End thread. Internet scares old people, as does anything new.

I think you are dead on right about the author of the book. Clearly he is afraid of the internet and for no logical reason I can attribute to the linked text. He's afraid of life as he knew it, books and a more leisurely society going to the wayside.

But all old people? I so beg to differ. My dad is 79 and has recently embraced the internet (after avoiding it because he spent the last 35 years using computers to earn his living). He loves that he can access ideas from any realm of humanity and it's spurred him be more engaged in conversation with the younger members of the family. My mom overcame her frustration with it, navigation and the basics of how it works, long ago, so now they have lively more conversations as well.

The same is true of my in-laws and a dear older friend of mine, but unfortunately not of one of my other 70-something relatives. He refuses to have a computer believing they are some kind of plot and therefore he limits his intake of information to Fox. I'm not joking either.

I dont think its making people lose their reasoning abilities, if anything it encourages people to seek information for themselves instead of relying on older methods of communication.

I agree! Our natural curiosity and the ease of accessing information on any subject that strikes our fancy is improving our minds. I think anyway. Our intellectual horizons are so greatly broadened compared to a couple generations ago.
 

LiberalAvenger

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I don't see how any kid with half a brain can not be an honor roll student thanks to the internet.

But, why are our schools failing so badly? Is the internet making it too easy for them and making them lazy or do they just spend too much time watching viral videos on it?

Also I think it it leads many of the kids into plagiarism .

:allhail
 

d0gbreath

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The most interesting factor concerning the age of information is how much of the information is just plain wrong, false, try again. Yet the bad information still spreads at the speed of broadband. Once it's out there, it can never be completely corrected and will continue to spread until the end of digititis.
 

Gina

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I don't see how any kid with half a brain can not be an honor roll student thanks to the internet.

But, why are our schools failing so badly? Is the internet making it too easy for them and making them lazy or do they just spend too much time watching viral videos on it?

Also I think it it leads many of the kids into plagiarism .

:allhail

Why schools are failing, is a whole different subject. They've been failing for decades but as for how much can be attributed to the internet? To the extent that kids are distracted by viral videos, yes, but not in an overall way.

That information is easy to access should make completing assignments easy as well.

I think plagiarism is a more serious concern. Without the internet, kids have done it, but I think it is more prevalent now. I would like to see a section on the discussion of plagiarism and how to avoid it, introduced into the English studies curriculum. Starting in elementary school.

Our outmoded educational system has not caught up to it. I know from my experience with my kids, it is only lightly touched upon, as in the first day of class they are given expectations and told "Don't do it". That's it??
 

tacomancer

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I got my thoughts back together and honestly, I think ... KITTEN!!!!

cute-kitten-04.jpg


GRRRR! Internet!
mad.gif
 
Last edited:

Kali

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I think the inerwebz is good and bad.. There is a deep dark underbelly and it destroys people that get addicted to it.

I also feel we are way oversensitized which makes humans desensitized which can probably lead to mental illness.
 

Chuz Life

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There is a new book out about the internet and how it is ****ing up our brains.

excerpt

I think the internet and other modern communication devices are making us lose much of our own reasoning abilities.

What the hell?

How did this poll question come up in my porno search?
 

lizzie

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I suspect that mass communications and the infotech phenomenon has both good and bad effects. Good in that one can retrieve information about virtually any subject. Bad in that being electronically "connected" to anyone anywhere seems to bring out obsessive-compulsive tendencies and lessens a grounded sense of wellbeing that spending time alone can cultivate. I've never seen such insecurity and a constant need to communicate as I see with many people (primarily young, but also some middle-agers) today. As an example, a couple of weeks ago, my cell phone rang 6 times within about 2 minutes at 1:00 AM. It was a wrong number, and the young girl was frantic abount having left her phone in a friend's car. Panicked is the term that comes to mind.
 
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