General > General Technical Chat
Life before (anti-)"social" media
eti:
And YES, that INCLUDES forums!
SiliconWizard:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-almost-effect/201405/can-excessive-social-networking-harm-marriages
2014
Halcyon:
The internet has done wonders for the world, no doubt about it, but I think if you're looking at social media on it's own, I think it's important to consider the type of social media and the context in which it's been used.
For example, I personally don't consider forums like EEVblog or IRC chat rooms as the "social media" we know today. Some might disagree with me and that's fine, I can see both sides of the argument. For me, I openly tell people that I don't use social media (and for the most part, that's completely true and has been since MySpace was a thing).
I first used the internet on a regular basis in 1994 and then got our own dial-up connection at home either late 1994 or early 1995. Back then, there were no unlimited plans and access was measured by time (not data volume). I think initially we paid for 25 hours per month then later that was upped to 60 hours. You had to use your time wisely. (If I remember correctly, unlimited time/data dial-up plans weren't available until the late 1990's.)
Back then, I spent most of my time online communicating with friends and people from all over the world, predominately on IRC but also on ICQ. MSN Messenger and for a time AOL IM. I found it to be an extremely effective way of being social, in addition to the usual things kids did (ride bikes, visit friends etc...). I would say I learnt a lot about the world (and how much of an asshole some people can be) online.
These days, I think the complete opposite is true. Outside of keeping in-touch with family who might be far away, social media has mostly turned into a mechanism for brain rot. Some, like TikTok are essentially being used as weapons. The fact that kids can access this garbage anytime, anywhere, contributes to the mental health and societal issues. Could you imagine the anxiety if you took a teenagers phone off them for 12 hours?
On a similar topic, I'm finding the younger generations (I'm in my 30's) no longer "know stuff". These days, they are so used to simply "looking up stuff" and even worse, asking AI applications for the answer. In my organisation, we get quite a few interns through and I would say only about the top 10-15% or so of students aren't completely useless. The rest really don't know all that much (and that's if they show up to work at all). One example out of many happened just last week, I was dealing with the head of IT for another company, the guy who is supposed to be looking after the infrastructure. I asked him about a specific NAT/port forward rule on his firewall, the bloke had no idea what I was talking about, instead sends me irrelevant screen shots of things he thought I wanted to see.
Siwastaja:
Neither me nor my wife have accounts in any "social media" outlets or even a smartphone. It doesn't feel we are missing anything. The cons severely outweigh any pros.
mendip_discovery:
Social media has always been a part of the internet for me. I was on mailing lists and newsgroups as it's where you found out about stuff in the era BG (Before Google).
I enjoyed it then and made some good friends, some I have met, and done events with. But I was loner and have always been one. But over the past few years I have struggled with stuff, I'm now 40 and I would love to say it's just a midlife thing but my work as much as I love the subject does get me down due to a lack of money/time to do the stuff I want to do. I get a lot of stress from it at times as I am expected to do all the things a Head of Lab needs to do but also do most of the work onsite. This caused me to retreat from social stuff but that in part is becuase of the amount of hate that people project especially around P*litics. I have now cut ties with the mailing list I was a part of for 25 years and removed all my "friends" from faceache with only family remaining. I only inhabit a few places in the internet and may drop away from more future.
Social media has been a prop for my social awkwardness but it has only been temporary solution.
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