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Faster internet access has weakened civic participation in Britain

22 points by nemoniac 5y ago

kgin 5y ago
I’m not sure I understand what the proposed relationship is. Web access for most people has been essentially the same experience for years. Whether you have 5mbps or 1000mbps, Facebook pops up about the same. Why would having access to higher speeds change your engagement with civic institutions. I could understand if we were comparing dialup era (or even pre-internet era) to broadband era.
- YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
  That's maybe the truth for urban aeras but suburban and rural areas in most of europe had no or really restricted broadband access until the last 5 years. Standard upload speeds are still 20mbits or even lower. We are not speaking about consuming we are also speaking about creating content or contributing to communities. If you are a family of four with two children with your children engaging in gaming or online communities, it's very hard to come by with just 100/20.
- randomopining 5y ago
  Yeah I never understood. Everybody is like “wow fiber internet, education!” People are just gonna start their TikTok vids 0.2secs faster. It takes community and parenting to actually leverage the availability of resources. You could download all the MIT courses on a 3mb dsl connection in 2008 and have your kid learn from the greatest in the world for free. And yet kids today are on their series x and tiktok on their dads wifi 6e router with gigabit fiber.
TheGoddessInari 5y ago
> The combined effect on engagement with organisations such as political parties, unions and professional associations was a 6% reduction in participation from 2010 to 2017 for each 1.8km closer to the local exchange someone lived. This doesn't link to the study for some reason, so it's hard to tell, but it looks as if they are using proximity to telco exchanges as a 1:1 proxy metric for internet bandwidth, which doesn't make any sense for a whole pile of reasons, and then trying to connect that over a time span of 2010 to 2017 while assigning 100% of the change to this as the only possible variable.
- YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
  UKs broadband is mostly based on DSL so it makes a bit of sense.
Hokusai 5y ago
YouTube, infinite scrolling, free to play games ... everything is designed to trap our attention span. This is by design.
- jaclaz 5y ago
  And not an entirely new concept, it is panem et circenses[1] (only without the panem). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
- relativ575 5y ago
  Add to the list content aggregation, upvote/downvote, user comments, ..., site such as HN.
legerdemain 5y ago
This is predictable and natural. Given alternatives, people don't want to unnecessarily interact with others. They don't want "civic participation," they don't want politics, they don't want regulations, and they certainly don't want the frustration of negotiating with people who value different things and work toward incompatible goals. An average person doesn't want a "society," he wants a house and a family he can defend physically, and the rest of the world and the people in it are at best an unpleasant afterthought and at worst a threat. To the extent technology can help achieve this ideal, I consider it a good thing.

22 points by nemoniac 5y ago

kgin 5y ago

I’m not sure I understand what the proposed relationship is. Web access for most people has been essentially the same experience for years. Whether you have 5mbps or 1000mbps, Facebook pops up about the same. Why would having access to higher speeds change your engagement with civic institutions. I could understand if we were comparing dialup era (or even pre-internet era) to broadband era.

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
That's maybe the truth for urban aeras but suburban and rural areas in most of europe had no or really restricted broadband access until the last 5 years. Standard upload speeds are still 20mbits or even lower. We are not speaking about consuming we are also speaking about creating content or contributing to communities. If you are a family of four with two children with your children engaging in gaming or online communities, it's very hard to come by with just 100/20.
randomopining 5y ago
Yeah I never understood. Everybody is like “wow fiber internet, education!” People are just gonna start their TikTok vids 0.2secs faster. It takes community and parenting to actually leverage the availability of resources. You could download all the MIT courses on a 3mb dsl connection in 2008 and have your kid learn from the greatest in the world for free. And yet kids today are on their series x and tiktok on their dads wifi 6e router with gigabit fiber.

TheGoddessInari 5y ago

> The combined effect on engagement with organisations such as political parties, unions and professional associations was a 6% reduction in participation from 2010 to 2017 for each 1.8km closer to the local exchange someone lived. This doesn't link to the study for some reason, so it's hard to tell, but it looks as if they are using proximity to telco exchanges as a 1:1 proxy metric for internet bandwidth, which doesn't make any sense for a whole pile of reasons, and then trying to connect that over a time span of 2010 to 2017 while assigning 100% of the change to this as the only possible variable.

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
UKs broadband is mostly based on DSL so it makes a bit of sense.

Hokusai 5y ago

YouTube, infinite scrolling, free to play games ... everything is designed to trap our attention span. This is by design.

jaclaz 5y ago
And not an entirely new concept, it is panem et circenses[1] (only without the panem). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
relativ575 5y ago
Add to the list content aggregation, upvote/downvote, user comments, ..., site such as HN.

legerdemain 5y ago

This is predictable and natural. Given alternatives, people don't want to unnecessarily interact with others. They don't want "civic participation," they don't want politics, they don't want regulations, and they certainly don't want the frustration of negotiating with people who value different things and work toward incompatible goals. An average person doesn't want a "society," he wants a house and a family he can defend physically, and the rest of the world and the people in it are at best an unpleasant afterthought and at worst a threat. To the extent technology can help achieve this ideal, I consider it a good thing.