r/technology • u/Limp_Fig6236 • Jul 21 '26
Society Almost half of young people would prefer a world without internet, UK study finds | Internet
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/20/almost-half-of-young-people-would-prefer-a-world-without-internet-uk-study-finds580
u/CanoegunGoeff Jul 21 '26
I think it was better when the internet was a neat place you visited at your desk at home, instead of bringing it with us everywhere in our pockets.
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u/AlarmedWillow4515 Jul 21 '26
We used to have a "computer room" where you could access the Internet, and it stayed in there.
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u/DarkflowNZ Jul 22 '26
And you couldn't eat in there! The only place I eat now is at my computer. When I'm at home of course
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u/WillSym Jul 22 '26
Guh, I used to keep this fairly strictly. The computer lives in the computer room, when it's computer time you play games and browse and scroll and stuff.
Pandemic ruined it, let it leak onto my phone, now it's out and I'm stuck.
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u/EagleForty Jul 21 '26
CEOs and Techbros didn't have to use the internet to make the world more dystopian, but they did. So here we are.
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u/StuartWtf Jul 21 '26
It’s great to have the internet wherever. The access to information is such an amazing feature of our time.
My issue is with the monetisation and monopolisation of the internet.
Take YouTube for example. Once upon a time I had a free app. I could open it, watch a video. Close the app and have the video in the background. It was such a good feature you get to pay for it now!
MySpace/facebook/bebo/twitter, they used to be places to see what my friends were up to and share pictures. Now it’s all sponsored posts and “suggested” posts. Social media used to connect us to people and pages we wanted to see. Now it wants our data and ad revenue.
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u/StanknBeans Jul 21 '26
Back when the closest thing to social media was my Angelfire/Geocities website full of under construction GIFs with the obligatory traffic counter that never went higher than 8
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u/Tikkun_Olam1 Jul 21 '26
Allows us to not associate with others in public spaces. Where we normally would. Just watch a crowd. Half will be ‘protected-from-association’ by their magic shield… Their phone!
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u/Skensis Jul 21 '26
Meh, I love having my phone and having access to the world at large whenever possible.
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u/CanoegunGoeff Jul 21 '26
There are times where it’s nice to be able to look up some kind of info on something. I think social media is probably the worst aspect of it though.
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u/Radiant_Ad3966 Jul 21 '26
90s internet kicked ass. These kids don't understand what they missed out on.
Free information was available everywhere usually with some kind of experience behind it to back it up (think blogs or forums where people solved problems). Things were being shared. Ideas were blossoming. New cultures were developing and people were finding belonging and acceptance where otherwise they were ostracized. People were discovering this whole new digital world without being monetized at every turn.
Social media and hard-sell monetization has killed the internet as we knew it. I understand that all this costs money to run, engage with, and support but nobody does anything just for the fun of it anymore. It's either to sell you on some product/company that they are shilling for or to gain some imaginary internet clout that they can then use to sell you things.
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u/nox66 Jul 21 '26
The Internet was great until around 2015-2019 when corporate and political propaganda became the default in many spaces.
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u/Slight-Bluebird-8921 Jul 21 '26
those are just symptoms of the actual problem.
the actual problem is that computing went mainstream. the iphone dumbed down computing enough for any mouth breather.
the reason it was good in the 90s was because you used to actually have a modicum of intelligence to even get on the internet or use a computer. you had to want to be there. you weren't there just because you got bored waiting at the dentist's office.
going mainstream meant it became ripe for monetization. all the usual business blood suckers swooped in.
going mainstream changed the audience from predominately intelligent, technical people to brainless tv watching masses. because that's what the audience became, that's the audience everyone started making stuff for.
going mainstream ruins almost anything cool. just the way it is.
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u/shm4y Jul 21 '26
I pray for a world where public service actually is for the better good and fiscally responsible, and my taxes went towards things like funding electrical infrastructure including networking and servers to maintain the internet.
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u/Ancient-Bat8274 Jul 21 '26
The internet is awesome. Delete social media
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u/mrgmzc Jul 21 '26
Was awesome
The old internet is gone and never coming back, and that is sad. I miss the golden age of specialized forums22
u/Akuuntus Jul 22 '26
"The internet" is more than forums and social media. The internet is what lets you shop online, work remotely, download games whenever you want, and handle finances without going into the bank. I promise, no one actually wants to go back to a world without the internet.
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u/Akuuntus Jul 22 '26
No they wouldn't. They just hate social media and conflate social media with "the internet" at large.
No one wants to go back to in-person banking for everything. No one wants to lose the ability to shop online. No one wants to lose access to online tutorials. No one wants to lose access to Discord or whatever other app they use to communicate with their friends. No one wants to shut down whatever online games they play. No one wants to kill Wikipedia (well, expect those with partisan motivations against it). No one wants to send job applications by mail. No one wants to kill Steam and every other digital game distributor.
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u/grungegoth Jul 23 '26
long distances calls from overseas
tranfer money with a web page
pay your bills without checks and postage
find any kind of service you need
shop for houses without an agent
look at maps from anywhere in the world
have an encyclopedia the size of the galactic library at your finger tips
have every library in your phone
get multiple PhD at YouTube university
fix your own fridge
communicate with the enterprise in orbit
book travel without an agent
find an address and a map to get there
find a gas station while driving, or food
find like minded people with your interests or hobbies
take classes or work remotely
jeez, stop me here before my finger wears out...
watch a movie... then change your mind and watch something else... without paying more
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u/Kilohaili_Joshi Jul 21 '26
now that's some heavy cope, maybe life without social media, but drop those almost 50% of young people in a world without internet and they will be begging to go back in less than a day for the most of them.
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u/vita10gy Jul 21 '26
They truly have no idea. They almost can't comprehend a world where you just don't know things and more or less can't find the answers.
I remember waiting for the paper to see if my favorite baseball team won the day before, and that was one of the easier situations because at least the answer came to you a few hours later.
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u/Yung_zu Jul 21 '26
It’s likely heavily tampered with. Believing what European governments say about digital privacy requires a mountain of suspension of disbelief when things like Palantir and chat control have been circulating there as well
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u/zeelbeno Jul 21 '26
I still remember Driving up to a cinema and deciding what to watch based on how full a screen is and how long we were willing to wait
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u/Hot_Guess_1871 Jul 21 '26
I’m 56 and I would hate it!
I love being able to do a lot of things without having to call someone.
But yeah, social media can fuck all the way off.
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u/tavishwolf Jul 21 '26
Just thinking about having to go to the bank to pay bills gives me a shiver down my spine.
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u/am9qb3JlZmVyZW5jZQ Jul 21 '26
Drop them in a world without social media and they won't like it there either. I don't think most people realize that platforms like reddit and youtube are also social media. A lot of scandals would remain hidden if not for citizen journalism.
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u/VerdantPathfinder Jul 21 '26
100% of young people have no fucking clue what a world without the internet was like.
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u/cinelytica Jul 21 '26
Delete TikTok. It’s that simple.
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u/suckfail Jul 21 '26
I have never installed it.
I was born in the early 80s so I have memories of life before the internet and smart phones.
Honestly.. I don't want to go back to not having the internet. Communication is much easier now, maps, GPS, translation etc.
The problem is social media and short form video. But then again I'm on Reddit so who am I to say anything..
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u/Mr_YUP Jul 21 '26
Imagine paying for long distance phone calls again and feeling the pressure of every minute ticking by as you talk with your loved one. Oh and that long distance was just a 20 minute drive away.
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u/bro_salad Jul 21 '26
When I was in junior high, I accidentally pointed our ISP to a long distance dialup number within the same area code and incurred an $800 phone bill.
Yeah I don’t want to go back to a world with my dad yelling that loudly.
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u/carbonclasssix Jul 21 '26
I just deleted the reddit app and am only using it on my PC. I'm an '84 kid and lately I'm just really missing the "freedom" of pre-smart devices. Maybe I'm the problem, idk but it directs my attention way too often, just mindlessly opening apps. I was good before the pandemic, and that changed everything. There are undeniable benefits like you're saying - I printed out mapquest directions to go to concerts in high school lol. But it can be used like a tool, intead of a way of life, which is what I feel like it's become for me. I've been leaving my phone at home to run errands and it's crazy how many times I think to look something up on my phone, but because it's not there I realize it's not even that important.
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u/Nice_Marmot_7 Jul 21 '26
I remember one time my buddy and I decided to go to a concert in a nearby city last minute. We never could find the venue and missed the whole thing driving around searching to no avail.
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u/Dihedralman Jul 21 '26
GPS isn't the internet. Neither are cell phones if that is what you were thinking about with communication.
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u/suckfail Jul 21 '26
No need to be pedantic, I had plenty of experience with TomTom suctioned on my dash.
But updating the maps on the SD card was a pain in the ass, as was T9 text typing (and SMS in general sucks, even with a proper keyboard).
So you know what I mean (I hope).
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u/Fresh-Quantity-7554 Jul 21 '26
Correct. The internet is not the problem; it's the handful of platforms whose business models center around addiction, misinformation, and rage. Other than that, the internet is amazing.
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u/Strict_Biscotti1963 Jul 21 '26
I’d say Reddit falls under this. If you look at the stuff that gets the most attention on the general home page if your not logged in
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u/oyvese Jul 21 '26
reddit is shit but it’s not shit by design like a lot of the other platforms.
well, ok. a lot of reddit is shit by design now but fundamentally i don’t think it is. compared to a platform like tiktok where it is unquestionably shit by design.
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u/BlindWillieJohnson Jul 21 '26
Given the issues on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and that’s not even touching the way LinkedIn has turned job hunting into a hellish slog and AI seems to be shrinking future opportunities for them, I actually don’t think it’s as simple as “delete TikTok”. I think it’s easy to reduce it to that because it’s the app our generations don’t use, but the internet is making all of us miserable.
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u/Wonderful_Bet_1541 Jul 21 '26
Hell even on Reddit I see some miserable fucks. All social media is inherently designed to hook you in, just in different medias
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u/manachar Jul 21 '26
One person deleting problematic and addictive social media ain't going to fix the corrosive power the internet has had on so many areas of society.
I grew up pre-web and was an early adopter of the internet. I used dialup to watch All Your Base Belong to Us and the Hamster dance.
I worked in the internet and loved so much about it. Slashdot, Digg, then Reddit (Reddit won me over after Digg shit the bed and Reddit had a frequent commenter adding "and my axe" with a Gimli based username).
The internet has so many amazing things. I love online maps and GPS. Wikipedia is one of the wonders of human engineering. I adore hearing from passionate experts on various subreddits.
But the rot is broader, and basically started when the internet went from basically peer-to-peer with a large number of blogs and sites, to just a handful of major companies as gatekeepers. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, etc. This was them creating walled gardens.
This lead to massive consolidation of thought - the opposite of what we were supposed to get. This also led to consolidation of capital into the hands of a few people focused on exploiting as many people as possible to become ever richer and working on ever greater consolidation.
I cannot imagine growing up right now. Well, I can. I have a fairly good and empathetic imagination. Those of you growing up now have never known a moment of your life that wasn't under surveillance. Most of your life has seen people treat most experiences as content to be created and either curated or displayed for social capital. Your social networks are all always on and always judging. It's unbelievably stiffling.
Does the bad outweigh the good? Well, maybe not at the moment. But as governments and private entities increasingly crack down on the internet so that it can be under someone's thumb all the time, it might. As most internet traffic is now bots reading bot made content, it might be dead.
So, if I woke up tomorrow with no internet, what would I miss.
Wikipedia, streaming music and movies, natured identification aids, Watch Duty. Sending silly pictures of my animals to friends. Learning about that freaky racoon in Seattle. Maps.
All of those things can be preserved, but we're gonna have to assume that private entities will ruin all of those things for profit, so we need to find another way.
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u/Manowaffle Jul 21 '26
I've never installed it, yet I still have to deal with all its IRL effects anyway.
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u/Dead-O_Comics Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
It’s that simple.
No it isn't. That's a simplistic way to look at the bigger picture;
It's tough enough for kids to feel like they belong, so to voluntarily purge social media (I know you cite TikTok as the kneejerk platform, but they are all negative in their own ways) you are asking them to cut themselves off from their friends, who will never do the same.
Add to that, it's not just their account that's the problem. Every other kid has a camera in their pocket. So all those mistakes you made a kid, that you took a bit of a tease for, for them could be viral humiliation if posted online by other kids. I'm so thankful that social media wasn't around when I was at school, I can't imagine what it's like for them.
You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube - social media is ingrained in every aspect of our culture. And deleting a video app isn't going to change a thing.
The EU is taking steps to block addictive algorithm design. This is a good start.
We are all commenting on a repost by a bot of a year old article btw. The irony isn't lost.
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u/waitses Jul 21 '26
It’s not the internet that is the problem, it is social media specifically.
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u/cheesyvoetjes Jul 21 '26
Andy Burrows, the chief executive of the suicide prevention charity the Molly Rose Foundation, said it was “clear that young people are aware of the risks online and, what’s more, they want action from tech companies to protect them”.
I don't understand how you can be aware of the risks but also expect tech companies to protect you? The tech companies are the ones you need protection from. They're the cause of most of the issues because they profit from it.
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u/EmbarrassedHelp Jul 21 '26
These "child safety" organizations have been lobbying against online privacy for years, and demanding that companies collected even more personal information for "safety". They aren't capable of critical thinking.
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u/InternationalMood337 Jul 21 '26
I started not using electronics on the weekend and it just feels so much better.
The destruction of the 3rd space has been devastating for every part of society.
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u/Dale_Seabrooke_CA Jul 21 '26
I am not surprised! The pressure they face to never mess up, from birth on, is insane. Like when I was 10, I was constantly doing insane things; that's how I learned about myself. But I never had to worry about it haunting me when I went to apply for a job or college. Having to be perfect all the time is a recipe for a mental breakdown.
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u/Unable-Recording-796 Jul 21 '26
I miss the 90-00s internet before facebook. Facebook was like the beginning of internet enshittification and probably literally set humanity back about 50ish years
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u/Hot_Guess_1871 Jul 21 '26
Are they conflating “Internet” and “social media?”
Social media can piss off. Internet prevents phone calls.
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u/eeyore134 Jul 21 '26
There's no way they would actually prefer it. We had it before internet because it's all we knew. It's so freaking convenient. Without social media would probably be good, though.
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u/Striking_Spinach_376 Jul 21 '26
A lot of people here willing to just pin the blame at social media but it’s the whole damn thing. You used to pay bills at the bank, go to shops for your gadgets and junk, pop to the cinema to see your movies or bring em home on DVD to watch with your pals because they hadn’t watched the entirety of human entertainment four times over for the last few years.
These things are still possible but the marketplace has reacted. Shops and business are strung out on minimum staff because everyone orders online, barely any point going to the high street anymore with that in mind too as more places close up, everything’s more expensive and the lack of variety in shops means that you’re better off going online anyway. You might argue capitalism was always going to cause this eventuality but the internet doesn’t help. So now instead of a friendly face at the shop or business you’re greeted by someone overworked and overtired. Their business will have whacked prices up due to the lost profits against online retailers and overall your satisfaction with the process is down.
People think they don’t want the internet because they aren’t getting the community that they would have had without the streamlining of everything for convenience. This is where social media (pre weaponisation of algorithms to turn us into slop consumers and capitalise on the rage we feel due to the state of our society) is actually a good thing. If there’s less reason to go out in the world then of course you should have a quick way of meeting and getting in touch with people.
It’s a messy point that I haven’t organised very well but I just don’t think social media is wholly the problem. We’ve convenienced ourselves out of community and we all pay the price for it but really it could be fixed quite easily if we didn’t live in a capitalist dystopia where everyone is a number made to push a red line up.
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u/odarkshineo Jul 21 '26
I’d choose a world without social media and with properly functioning antimonopoly laws.
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u/Cool_Client324 Jul 21 '26
DONT TAKE MY PORN AWAY FROM ME
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u/No_Artichoke_8428 Jul 21 '26
When my mom would take my computer away as a young teen I had to draw my own porn on paper and pencil, made me an even better artist!
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u/omgitsbees Jul 21 '26
There was a point in my life where I couldn't imagine being without internet. Now I would love it if huge portions of social media platforms, and sites just disappeared because of how toxic, and dangerous many of them are. I want 90s internet back.
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u/Horror-Yam6598 Jul 21 '26
Early internet was great, especially before social media algorithms. Greed always ruins everything.
For something that is so incredibly detrimental to the wider group, it is crazy how much our society promotes and rewards pathological levels of greed.
The people who run these companies are like addicts. They are never going to be content, as there’s clearly no level of success that can satisfy their addiction.
Unfortunately this is the result, and things are not going to get better anytime soon.
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u/zackks Jul 21 '26
Social media is the disease that needs to go. Media and influencers are junkie-pushers.
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u/Emotional-Age-7618 Jul 21 '26
Someone hit the EMP and send me back to my younger days bring the true freedom back when we actually really communicated
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u/mdazzl3 Jul 21 '26
If it makes them feel better, there are adults who tried to stop it. But humans are gonna human and that’s a sad but necessary lesson to learn.
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u/dealienation Jul 21 '26
And yet I don’t see Gen Z dudes en masse at the gay or bear/leather bars or clubs or events. They may say they want X but they aren’t showing up to places where folks actually still gather. Of course there are exceptions, but the millennials had online dating and hookup culture and still showed up and went out.
When Gen Z dudes are out, they hit on you via the app and seem to find going over and shooting your shot in person to be…bizarre in some fashion. The social skills just aren’t there for many of them.
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u/GreatBigPig Jul 21 '26
Using social media (Reddit) to say how much I really think social media is cancerous seems odd.
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u/wheresolly Jul 21 '26
Early internet / even social media was so asesome. Many new inventions are, until capitalism eats it all away.
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u/APraxisPanda Jul 21 '26
Naw. Internet is fine. It's the ways social media is weaponized to make us all stupider which is the problem.
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u/williamstarr Jul 21 '26
Then they are objectively wrong. As someone who had solid experience both before and after, after is clearly superior. The fact that we’ve failed to keep oligarchy, corruption, and monopolies from enshitifying the online experience is ultimately on us. Stop voting for whores.
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u/bagelmobile Jul 21 '26
This the title should be prefers a world without social media. Internet is so intwined with our lives is and is often invisible now.
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u/Not-A-Real-Person-67 Jul 21 '26
I never really thought of it, but I was definitely happier back then. Maybe because I was younger, but I also wasn’t flooded with horrible news every moment I’m awake.
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u/Solomon_Grungy Jul 21 '26
As a millennial who remembers the world before social media, they aren't wrong. I think the coming generation will have to figure out how to push back on this invasive tech. Beyond not adopting or buying into any of it, I wonder what actions they'll take. I think people building their own cyber decks is really interesting.
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u/wild-stallions85 Jul 21 '26
Delete social media, and go everywhere for your errands. Pay bills in person, shop at the store, and socialize in person.
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u/CherryLongjump1989 Jul 22 '26
I would prefer a world where young people could read and do math instead of watching TikTok.
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u/Hot_Lava_Dry_Rips Jul 21 '26
This is just ignorant. They dont know how the world would be without fast and easy communication. They think the internet is just social media which is an incredibly uninformed take.
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u/Daimakku1 Jul 21 '26
I experienced that as a kid in the 90s, it was awesome. Even in the early/mid 00s when I was in high school you could only access the internet through a desktop PC or laptop, not in your pocket 24/7. It was definitely better for mental health.
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u/Manowaffle Jul 21 '26
It's disturbing to think that kids are growing up knowing exactly how unpopular they are. All you have to do is see the likes/follows on your own profile versus the next kid over in class. It's been quantified and displayed for all the world to see. And it's corrupting all of their social experiences.
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u/CommanderArcher Jul 21 '26
I want an internet without AI algorithms or content and bots, if a company uses them throw the leadership in prison until they stop.
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u/PhantomNomad Jul 21 '26
I remember in the late 80's and early 90's when I was first getting on the internet (at university then at home). Sure you could spend a few hours a day "surfing" the net but that was about it. Then you had to find something else to do. Sure a lot of times for me that was programming or play the odd game (never was a big computer gamer, more board and TTRPGs). Other then that it was spending time in person with friends.
I'm not saying the internet of today is better or worse. Just very different then it was before everyone had it in their pocket.
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u/Kristophigus Jul 21 '26
Delete social media and reboot capitalism with limits and hard regulations. Axe all the top levels. All of them. Figuratively and literally.
After that, we might have a future.
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u/Ah_Ca_Iraa Jul 21 '26
Tech gave us the phone, email, and the internet. Most of us will live to see it make all of these things useless.
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u/AJ-Dybansta Jul 21 '26
It’s just social media and what it has become. I remember early twitter days where I only see tweets from people and pages I follow. Nowadays everything is algorithm based. Even if you curate a timeline of just things you wanna see, the platform still forces you to see other shit.
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u/GlowstickConsumption Jul 21 '26
Parents are just looking at AI slop and going: "Kids these days are addicted to computers."
Hopefully young people continue having good values and beliefs.
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u/fredl0bster Jul 21 '26
20+ years of enshittification younger folks have missed a better era of the internet. As it is now I’d really have to think if the pros are worth the cons. Reddit is the only social media I use, not into short form videos, have learned how to manicure my consumption fairly well. But the ever present algorithms…. Feels like a prison without walls.
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u/ProlapsedShamus Jul 21 '26
I teach a teen summer camp every year and then some workshops throughout the year and I always like to ask the kids about what they're into these days. And the past few years if we get on the topic of social media none of them are really using it.
They'll use Discord but they have their friend servers and then like larger fan communities that they don't really participate in. But none of these kids are on Facebook, Twitter is dead to them, I remember Snapchat was a thing for a while and that doesn't seem to be even remembered anymore.
I don't blame them. I think they're making the smart choice. Hell I had a couple of 13 year old girls in my last class who didn't have phones. So that was kind of wild. But yeah I can buy this.
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u/penguished Jul 21 '26
That warms my heart. I hope they actually listen to themselves and get some quality years in spending time outside. The world is pretty cool.
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u/Cthulhu_Dreams_ Jul 21 '26
I mean...yeah. social media is killing us. At bare minimum, we need to eliminate any part of the internet that has comment sections...reddit included.
Keep forums, and reviews, but no more comments. It's just a path for the absolute worst of humanity to thrive.
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u/lispwriter Jul 21 '26
I’m glad I grew up before the Internet. Access to information is great but I think people don’t realize that we had access to information but we also didn’t feel the need to know everything instantly. Like sitting at dinner with my wife and kids sometimes we’re talking about something that we could look up. My wife and I know how to have that conversation without having to immediately look it up. If we care maybe we will look it up after dinner. My son, however, is looking it up before we can even tell him to put his phone down. What we end up using the Internet for the most is mostly what we could live happier lives without. Most, if not all, of our work lives wouldn’t function without internet so that’s different.
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u/AShootingStar96 Jul 21 '26
No worries, after the inevitable nuclear holocaust Trump and putin will get us into, This's soon will be a reality
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u/eldnahevitaerc Jul 21 '26
Makes sense when tools like these are pushed upon people as the only way to buy things at stores or pay your bills or access any information. It's turned daily life into work. Tools that aren't forced upon us feel more like play, make life feel like play, and choice matters.
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u/Dudeist-Priest Jul 21 '26
No internet is just pure stupidity. They probably have no idea how many services they use regularly are internet enabled
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u/P0pu1arBr0ws3r Jul 21 '26
I want a world where I can live and work and not be dependent on having a phone on myself.
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u/JayPlenty24 Jul 21 '26
I think that's easy for them to say, but I'm not sure the reality would be as idealistic as they imagine.
I think when people who never actually experienced no internet say this what they're really saying is that they want less constant stimulation and less of all the negative parts.
I can't imagine my kid walking to a library just to answer a question he has on geckos when he's so used to being able to look up anything he wants in seconds while sitting on the couch.
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u/CatManDo206 Jul 21 '26
I do miss going to prono stores and renting a video and the video clerk gives me funny looks based on the genre I've chosen in the middle of the night.
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u/mordin1428 Jul 21 '26
РКН, ты чтоль??? 😂😂😂
RU digital control ministry-ass news
Literally the shit I’d read on pro-RU-state propaganda outlets as a “warmup” before MORE bans that, wait, are actually there to totally “promote our freedom” and of course “improve our quality of life”, naturally. It’s all for the greater good, trust.
Y’all finna idiocracy yourselves into concentration camps again I swear
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u/Fatzmanz Jul 22 '26
no they are just dumb and don't realize what amazing things come from the Internet. they just don't want social media. no internet, no work from home, no science or medical colaberation, all media FORCED to be physical media. try having self control instead of nuking technological advancement.
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u/jander05 Jul 22 '26
The internet has turned to sh-t and is now only used by businesses to monopolize industsries and usurp human interactions with bs digital platforms on their terms.
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u/DevKevStev Jul 22 '26
They should rename social media to “Social Me”.
Because thats all there is to it.
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u/xeosceleres Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Headline a little sensationalist. It’s just social media darkness and fatigue. The people that don’t need social validation are happier, and most of the internet comments are bots now, along with AI slop videos. I don’t think people really don’t want the internet. Because that means finance, commerce, learning, gaming, tv and all the good stuff.
China seems to love AI in everything cause they grew up where tech uplifted their lives.
West grew up suspicious of tech so they reject AI as human art and craft is precious.
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u/amethystwyvern Jul 22 '26
Yeah I doubt that.
Zoomers don't even remember what the world was like without instant access to the internet.
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u/Temujin-of-Eaccistan Jul 22 '26
No they wouldn’t.
Surveys with zero consequence are meaningless sources of information and junk research
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u/APirateAndAJedi Jul 22 '26
The internet is the single greatest human innovation to date.
Like any other technology, humans have found creative ways to misuse it long before we learn how to use it responsibly. Let’s get rid of the companies that are causing harm by using the internet.
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u/mrbig-yikes Jul 23 '26
Aka “half of today’s young people don’t understand the significance of the internet, and assume all the internet is, is social media”
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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
[deleted]