Really jarring reading that. I think I was in middle school when the AOL and the "internet" to me became a thing (lol) and sure there was a lot of time wasting

Really jarring reading that. I think I was in middle school when the AOL and the "internet" to me became a thing (lol) and sure there was a lot of time wasting stuff (chatrooms, games, etc.) but there was a huge huge field of just exploration and learning. I cut my tech teeth on that; minimal parent supervision, no gamifying or artificial motivators, just my curiosity. I feel for kids nowadays. It was the wild west back then, everything was basically unrestricted and nobody had any clue of the consequences, but we didn't have companies actively trying to addict us to stuff. No idea what the answer is.