> I can’t say that I did. I’d blame “being raised on the internet” as a consistent contributor to a lot of negatives in my life. Certainly, I picked up a lot of

> I can’t say that I did. I’d blame “being raised on the internet” as a consistent contributor to a lot of negatives in my life. Certainly, I picked up a lot of the rage from people in the IRC circles I ran with, and like a parrot exhibited it in my personal life. Beyond that, the general degradation of IRL social skills. I had an experience far more in line with the article. I grew up in extreme poverty, incredible isolation and within a very abusive family. So abusive that a big chunk of my childhood was spent in dealing with courts and police with eventually an apprehended violence order being taken out on my behalf against my parents to try and bring an end to the abuse. Extracted from the abuse but not the isolation I was headed to a very dark place. The interent was world changing for me once given access. It opened the door to another world, to the ability to socialise without stigma, learn and grow with people that in comparison to what I had experienced, were quite normal and well adjusted though of course, not perfect by any means. My time on it as a youth opened the door to a world that would later become my ladder out of that life and the foundation of my success as an adult. A ladder I would never had access to without the internet. I credit it for effectively having saved my life. I would be in a very different place now were it not for that exposure and experience. Where most of the people I knew as a youth are today, which is not at all a pleasant place. Todays internet is not the same I feel, and that is also not to say that it could not instead have been a detrimental place or experience for some even then. Perhaps if you have a more normal upbringing, one in which you do not face such extremes than it may only bring negatives instead of positives, but for many, it's a hatch to exposure of things you may otherwise never get to experience as others do.