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I feel like this problem wouldn't be limited to a person's use of the internet but would be an indicator of a person's lack of curiosity in general. The interne

I feel like this problem wouldn't be limited to a person's use of the internet but would be an indicator of a person's lack of curiosity in general. The internet, at its most fundamental level, is just information. Saying you don't know how to "waste time" on the internet is like saying nothing interests you anymore.

fardo 8y ago
>I feel like this problem wouldn't be limited to a person's use of the internet but would be an indicator of a person's lack of curiosity in general I don't agree with that idea. When people say "The internet isn't fun anymore", I don't think this generally is a change in the person so much as fundamental changes in how the modern internet is experienced. By analogy, if content on the internet is like a liquid flowing into a container, then it's predictable that the liquid will ultimately match the shape of its container. If you change the shape of that container, the liquid's ultimate shape (and thus the way it is experienced) changes in a predictable manner. When people say the internet isn't fun anymore, this isn't a comment about what's being poured, but the structure in which it's received and presented. Say what you will about streams of "information": I believe if you switch a man's wine glass with a dog dish, only a wino would say nothing has changed.
- ergomarky 8y ago
  >I don't think this generally is a change in the person so much as fundamental changes in how the modern internet is experienced. It's not a change in the person, it's a shift in perspective due to boredom. There was a podcast about boredom from freakonomics I believe, and a lot of people (largely those 40+) simply don't view themselves as bored when all signs paint a different picture. This is what is happening to a lot of people (ITT), they are unaware of their boredom which feeds into a lack of curiosity, and so they keep doing the same routines and feel somewhat claustrophobic. They could very much break out of that routine, could look for new places to visit, new sites to sink their fangs into, but they won't because routines are very comfortable, and heck most of the top 100 alexa sites fulfill nearly every desire. When people say the internet isn't fun, it's not about presentation at all. Yes, Google has a lot of power in where people go, but there are so many alternative search engines and variety of leads that it really just takes one good afternoon being the excited curious cat you were as a teen.
  - oblio 8y ago
    It's also amusing to portray the internet as being some small entity. It's basically infinite at this point and it supports a million different interests, way more than it did in the 90's. Back then the whole internet population was in the millions and it was mostly geeks. Now it's in the billions and it covers everyone. So there's a ton of normies, but if you don't like what they're going, there's still at least the same amount of geeks available, probably more. As you said, you just have to go looking for the weird and interesting places :)
dnomad 8y ago
The medium is the message. The internet changed drastically after the rise of social networks and Google. It took a while for Google to get going though and fittingly, the founding year of Facebook, 2004, was the turning point. The new internet has been carefully and intentionally designed to capture user attention and direct it into profit streams. Virtually all of the interactive online spaces on the web aren't trying to support community or educate minds or foster discussion, instead their sole purpose is to direct attention to those who will pay for it. The only notable exceptions to this are (1) open source software communities that ironically make the internet go and (2) the invisible private communities (various mailing lists, forums, irc) that use various technologies to hide from Facebook and Google and (3) the cryptocurrency communities (4) Wikipedia. (The last two communities are interestingly full of crazy poor people -- notably bad targets for advertisers). All the other spaces on the net have either succumbed to advertisers or been built from the ground up to serve the will of advertisers. This is what has changed on the internet, not so much the information -- it's still mostly porn and cat pictures -- but the medium, the way that information is produced, managed and distributed. The question is to understand those design choices that allow online spaces to resist the advertising onslaught. The other question is whether people still want online spaces that do not serve the goal of advertising.

fardo 8y ago

>I feel like this problem wouldn't be limited to a person's use of the internet but would be an indicator of a person's lack of curiosity in general I don't agree with that idea. When people say "The internet isn't fun anymore", I don't think this generally is a change in the person so much as fundamental changes in how the modern internet is experienced. By analogy, if content on the internet is like a liquid flowing into a container, then it's predictable that the liquid will ultimately match the shape of its container. If you change the shape of that container, the liquid's ultimate shape (and thus the way it is experienced) changes in a predictable manner. When people say the internet isn't fun anymore, this isn't a comment about what's being poured, but the structure in which it's received and presented. Say what you will about streams of "information": I believe if you switch a man's wine glass with a dog dish, only a wino would say nothing has changed.

ergomarky 8y ago
>I don't think this generally is a change in the person so much as fundamental changes in how the modern internet is experienced. It's not a change in the person, it's a shift in perspective due to boredom. There was a podcast about boredom from freakonomics I believe, and a lot of people (largely those 40+) simply don't view themselves as bored when all signs paint a different picture. This is what is happening to a lot of people (ITT), they are unaware of their boredom which feeds into a lack of curiosity, and so they keep doing the same routines and feel somewhat claustrophobic. They could very much break out of that routine, could look for new places to visit, new sites to sink their fangs into, but they won't because routines are very comfortable, and heck most of the top 100 alexa sites fulfill nearly every desire. When people say the internet isn't fun, it's not about presentation at all. Yes, Google has a lot of power in where people go, but there are so many alternative search engines and variety of leads that it really just takes one good afternoon being the excited curious cat you were as a teen.
- oblio 8y ago
  It's also amusing to portray the internet as being some small entity. It's basically infinite at this point and it supports a million different interests, way more than it did in the 90's. Back then the whole internet population was in the millions and it was mostly geeks. Now it's in the billions and it covers everyone. So there's a ton of normies, but if you don't like what they're going, there's still at least the same amount of geeks available, probably more. As you said, you just have to go looking for the weird and interesting places :)

dnomad 8y ago

The medium is the message. The internet changed drastically after the rise of social networks and Google. It took a while for Google to get going though and fittingly, the founding year of Facebook, 2004, was the turning point. The new internet has been carefully and intentionally designed to capture user attention and direct it into profit streams. Virtually all of the interactive online spaces on the web aren't trying to support community or educate minds or foster discussion, instead their sole purpose is to direct attention to those who will pay for it. The only notable exceptions to this are (1) open source software communities that ironically make the internet go and (2) the invisible private communities (various mailing lists, forums, irc) that use various technologies to hide from Facebook and Google and (3) the cryptocurrency communities (4) Wikipedia. (The last two communities are interestingly full of crazy poor people -- notably bad targets for advertisers). All the other spaces on the net have either succumbed to advertisers or been built from the ground up to serve the will of advertisers. This is what has changed on the internet, not so much the information -- it's still mostly porn and cat pictures -- but the medium, the way that information is produced, managed and distributed. The question is to understand those design choices that allow online spaces to resist the advertising onslaught. The other question is whether people still want online spaces that do not serve the goal of advertising.