I haven't seen anyone mention my observations yet: The internet used to be a place we visited. Now we live there. Life was the abundant, fun thing, and like

I haven't seen anyone mention my observations yet: The internet used to be a place we visited. Now we live there. Life was the abundant, fun thing, and like any mild intoxicant, 30-60 minutes of internet enhanced life. We shuttled ideas between life and the internet, (let's look up how to make fireworks! Let's find girls online at other universities!) but money was much more difficult or impossible to transfer. We used to send a check to an ISP like several other mild media such as telephone and cable. Now we burn through electricity to verify our payments. And not everyone was on the internet. It wasn't easy or immediately rewarding. No slick salesman put a phone into your hand for $50 and gave any dickwad keys to the universe. You had to put some effort into it and earn your place there. You had to put together a number of pieces of information from other experts, persistently asking questions and taking chances. It was a nifty club with other lucky, brave, dedicated, skilled people. We considered ourselves grateful and (more or less) treated it with respect, vs taking for granted that the space would never offend us and conquering territory for ourselves (social media) and filling it with lies for our own selfish ends (fake news). Now everyone is there (...Here!) all the time. It's like living in a subway station. Yes you can have fun there, but surely it's better to be outdoors mostly and re-enter as desired. It was not unlike an intimate relationship's honeymoon, versus living together and suddenly required to have a productive partnership and responsibility. Sure, it's fulfilling for many people, but the carefree, easy days are over. Yes, you can still go to html5zombo.com, but don't stay too long! Your bills are in that other tab. And the camera in your child's pre-school in the other. And you've got to finalize your purchases or the Amazon delivery window closes. And you've got to research everything finance related. And double-check all the news because lies abound. And don't forget to maintain appearances on linkedin. And keep learning, because everyone else is learning and they'll learn more than you. And your school is analyzing your child's every breath and keystroke. That phone screen and browser window are the new eyes through which you're looking at the world. We have left the world behind and now nature becomes the 30-60 minutes of unknown amusement and delight we dream of rather than our proper home. Try to count how many half hours go by this week in which you a. are awake and b. don't touch the internet. It's not the internet we miss, it's its subordinate relation to the real world we miss.