Using the internet is like moving from the city to the suburbs. You have complete control over the news you read, the videos you watch, and the music you listen

Using the internet is like moving from the city to the suburbs. You have complete control over the news you read, the videos you watch, and the music you listen to. It's also a very lonely place. Human beings are reduced to casual stimulation. No amount of information is ever enough. We don't know our neighbors. I try as hard as I can to stay away from the internet, especially social media. Hacker News is the only exception, the only drug that I can't quit. I sometimes wonder how the tobacco executives feel as they promote a harmful product, even while many of them do not smoke. Detached consumerism is a disease. It is hard to cure because we are all complicit in this ailment. The internet, with its stimulating advertising and glossy social media perceptions of a flawless moment in time, is a vector for this disease. I'm not sure the internet is helping us. It may be instrumental in us hurting ourselves, and each other, instead.