5 ms·

Smartphones was the final nail, after that close to 100% of young adults are active online participants. The good thing is that things aren't getting worse at

Smartphones was the final nail, after that close to 100% of young adults are active online participants. The good thing is that things aren't getting worse at least, all the idiots are already online.

sneak 3y ago
Only about half the humans are on the internet.
- ebcode 3y ago
  Then there's still hope!
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  You're telling us it's going to get worse then?
eastbound 3y ago
But OKCupid joining the race to the bottom was a choice. They decided to drop the high-IQ / literary customers. They could have remained as the high-end of dating. 90% of men don’t enjoy using Tinder, and for women it’s just a utility service when being bachelor.
intelVISA 3y ago
All the idiots already were, unless bikeshedding category theory in IRC while m$ and friends pulled the rug under general computing was The Thinking Man's Choice.
checkyoursudo 3y ago
Check out the Flynn Effect. It is possible that all of us online idiots and the cohorts coming after are getting stupider every generation. I wouldn't be so hasty with the "things aren't getting worse" part just yet. It could get much worse!
dredmorbius 3y ago
I suspect smartphones affect this in two ways. One is that they put the Internet in everybody's hands, literally. The other, though, is that by virtue of the interface, both display (tiny) and input (shitty, to put it mildly), the effective IQ of those participating, regardless of whatever it was initially, is severely penalised. When I'm typing at a keyboard, I can look at the words I'm typing, or the source I'm typing from, or just off into space as I'm thinking my thoughts ... and be reasonably assured that what I think I'm typing is what's actually appearing on screen. And if not, editing to correct and fix issues is reasonably straightforward. If necessary I'll switch to a Real Editor (that is, vim, Vale Bram Moolenaar) which is another quantum leap beyond in-browser textbox editing. When I'm typing at a virtual touchscreen keyboard, I am staring at the keys themselves and trying to hit the the keys I'm actually intending to hit. I'm not monitoring the output (which invariably has errors), I'm not looking at source text, I'm not thinking and composing my thoughts. And then editing what I've written is also painful. The resulting typos, losses of thought, and general incoherence in my own writing absolutely pains me to look at. From what I can tell, other people seem to suffer similarly. I've given up using mobile devices for input (unless I can use a hardware keyboard, and even that rarely), and ... frankly it's a much improved situation. Smartphones shallow the mind in many ways.
- bluGill 3y ago
  I write much longer comments on my laptop and desktop computers than on my phone. The pains you mention make me write less even when I want to write more. Do not confuse this with “I have made this longer than usual because I have not time to make it shorter.” (Pascal, 1657, though others have said something similar and folklore attributes the idea to many more) - I do often revise long comments on my computer to be shorter, but they are still much longer than what I'd write on my phone. If I spent more time on them on my computer I'd write them even shorter, but still much longer because what I want to say is normally long and complex and a phone just makes the complexity too hard to write. You won't be surprised I've never got the point of limited space places like twitter...
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Dittos ;-)

sneak 3y ago

Only about half the humans are on the internet.

ebcode 3y ago
Then there's still hope!
dredmorbius 3y ago
You're telling us it's going to get worse then?

eastbound 3y ago

But OKCupid joining the race to the bottom was a choice. They decided to drop the high-IQ / literary customers. They could have remained as the high-end of dating. 90% of men don’t enjoy using Tinder, and for women it’s just a utility service when being bachelor.

intelVISA 3y ago

All the idiots already were, unless bikeshedding category theory in IRC while m$ and friends pulled the rug under general computing was The Thinking Man's Choice.

checkyoursudo 3y ago

Check out the Flynn Effect. It is possible that all of us online idiots and the cohorts coming after are getting stupider every generation. I wouldn't be so hasty with the "things aren't getting worse" part just yet. It could get much worse!

dredmorbius 3y ago

I suspect smartphones affect this in two ways. One is that they put the Internet in everybody's hands, literally. The other, though, is that by virtue of the interface, both display (tiny) and input (shitty, to put it mildly), the effective IQ of those participating, regardless of whatever it was initially, is severely penalised. When I'm typing at a keyboard, I can look at the words I'm typing, or the source I'm typing from, or just off into space as I'm thinking my thoughts ... and be reasonably assured that what I think I'm typing is what's actually appearing on screen. And if not, editing to correct and fix issues is reasonably straightforward. If necessary I'll switch to a Real Editor (that is, vim, Vale Bram Moolenaar) which is another quantum leap beyond in-browser textbox editing. When I'm typing at a virtual touchscreen keyboard, I am staring at the keys themselves and trying to hit the the keys I'm actually intending to hit. I'm not monitoring the output (which invariably has errors), I'm not looking at source text, I'm not thinking and composing my thoughts. And then editing what I've written is also painful. The resulting typos, losses of thought, and general incoherence in my own writing absolutely pains me to look at. From what I can tell, other people seem to suffer similarly. I've given up using mobile devices for input (unless I can use a hardware keyboard, and even that rarely), and ... frankly it's a much improved situation. Smartphones shallow the mind in many ways.

bluGill 3y ago
I write much longer comments on my laptop and desktop computers than on my phone. The pains you mention make me write less even when I want to write more. Do not confuse this with “I have made this longer than usual because I have not time to make it shorter.” (Pascal, 1657, though others have said something similar and folklore attributes the idea to many more) - I do often revise long comments on my computer to be shorter, but they are still much longer than what I'd write on my phone. If I spent more time on them on my computer I'd write them even shorter, but still much longer because what I want to say is normally long and complex and a phone just makes the complexity too hard to write. You won't be surprised I've never got the point of limited space places like twitter...
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Dittos ;-)