For most people, Snapchat, Tiktok, Discord, WhatsApp and other toxic environments is the de facto internet because it makes up 99% of their usage time.
It gets worse in poorer countries, where ISPs made deals with Facebook (ever wondered why some Indians are not able to google? Because google costs money, facebook groups doesn't). Additionally, whole infrastructures run on WhatsApp. In those regions you'll see WhatsApp numbers on container ships, trains, harbor buildings, factories etc because it's easier than maintaining a website for that.
(Edit: see my comment about internet.org)
The younger generation only uses smartphones because parents cannot afford to pay for both a laptop and a smartphone. Ask any teacher about that, they'll easily confirm this.
The problem we're facing is the overproprietarization of the internet. What we see as an internet where we can find information and learn about things, they see misinformation, propaganda, toxic shitstorms, and distraction. Even youtube has gone to shit, what started out as a new way to access knowledge in an entertaining way its early days.
And it's not only that, you can't even point kids to a safe website that will give them only links to learn/study about topics they're interested in, because google meanwhile has fully embraced its evil side of corporate greed that even the founders knew about was morally a conflict of interest in the beginning.
A lot of countries are thinking about banning smartphones from schools for this very reason. We (as a society) built apps so morally and uncontrollably bad that we created a whole generation of kids with self-induced ADHD, and now we're wondering why we have an education and therapy crisis.
> ever wondered why Indians are not able to google? Because google costs money, facebook groups doesn't
This is absolutely wrong. FB did that in SE Asia. But in India, this led to the creation of IIRC Internet Freedom Foundation which fights for Internet freedom to this day and established a strong foundation for net neutrality . FB tried to destroy net neutrality in India and failed.
But the broader point stands. Whatsapp, Youtube, Sharechat …etc., is internet for a huge percentage of the population.
> FB tried to destroy net neutrality in India and failed.
FB to this date still owns the internet.org domain, which was literally their marketing at the time. Free plans from mobile carriers had/have access to a few selected websites and not the rest of the real internet.
While I agree that the courts decided against this at some point, it was around 13+ years too late, because a generation of mobile users got hooked already.
Meta even went as far as deleting their internet.org website from the web archive, all years result in a 404 now. Interesting.
> Free plans from mobile carriers had/have access to a few selected websites and not the rest of the real internet.
Interesting to learn. In China, mobile carriers also have similar deals with huge content providers. You can buy data plans with a discounted rate specifically for several YouTube, Netflix, and TikTok like apps.
Highly specific subset of Internet. Not to disagree, but this is like saying people want to terminate voltage delivery to the home because they don't like radio.
Can I ask what you're basing that assertion on? The article makes it sound as if they were indeed referring to the internet in general: "46% said they would rather be young in a world without the internet altogether."
You are right to question my input. But, that said, I believe there is distinct confusion amongst internet consumers between the protocol stack and framing, and the forwarding of packets and applications services such as web and IM services. I wonder to what extent they have nuance in what "without the internet altogether" really means. Your point would be that they seem to be saying they really want the 1970s (or earlier back). Maybe thats right. It certainly seems to be based on the numbers. But the story arc mainly relates to social media, tiktok and like.
It's like when people say they want to go back to victorian values (of society at large) and forget that pre-dates antibiotics and anaesthesia. These people regret the socialised problems of being connected, misinformation at scale, loss of agency and genuine face-to-face communication and yearn for a simpler childhood. All well and good, but there's baby/bathwater latent in this.
For most people, Snapchat, Tiktok, Discord, WhatsApp and other toxic environments is the de facto internet because it makes up 99% of their usage time.
It gets worse in poorer countries, where ISPs made deals with Facebook (ever wondered why some Indians are not able to google? Because google costs money, facebook groups doesn't). Additionally, whole infrastructures run on WhatsApp. In those regions you'll see WhatsApp numbers on container ships, trains, harbor buildings, factories etc because it's easier than maintaining a website for that.
(Edit: see my comment about internet.org)
The younger generation only uses smartphones because parents cannot afford to pay for both a laptop and a smartphone. Ask any teacher about that, they'll easily confirm this.
The problem we're facing is the overproprietarization of the internet. What we see as an internet where we can find information and learn about things, they see misinformation, propaganda, toxic shitstorms, and distraction. Even youtube has gone to shit, what started out as a new way to access knowledge in an entertaining way its early days.
And it's not only that, you can't even point kids to a safe website that will give them only links to learn/study about topics they're interested in, because google meanwhile has fully embraced its evil side of corporate greed that even the founders knew about was morally a conflict of interest in the beginning.
A lot of countries are thinking about banning smartphones from schools for this very reason. We (as a society) built apps so morally and uncontrollably bad that we created a whole generation of kids with self-induced ADHD, and now we're wondering why we have an education and therapy crisis.
Duh.
> ever wondered why Indians are not able to google? Because google costs money, facebook groups doesn't
This is absolutely wrong. FB did that in SE Asia. But in India, this led to the creation of IIRC Internet Freedom Foundation which fights for Internet freedom to this day and established a strong foundation for net neutrality . FB tried to destroy net neutrality in India and failed.
But the broader point stands. Whatsapp, Youtube, Sharechat …etc., is internet for a huge percentage of the population.
> FB tried to destroy net neutrality in India and failed.
FB to this date still owns the internet.org domain, which was literally their marketing at the time. Free plans from mobile carriers had/have access to a few selected websites and not the rest of the real internet.
While I agree that the courts decided against this at some point, it was around 13+ years too late, because a generation of mobile users got hooked already.
Meta even went as far as deleting their internet.org website from the web archive, all years result in a 404 now. Interesting.
> Free plans from mobile carriers had/have access to a few selected websites and not the rest of the real internet.
Interesting to learn. In China, mobile carriers also have similar deals with huge content providers. You can buy data plans with a discounted rate specifically for several YouTube, Netflix, and TikTok like apps.
Highly specific subset of Internet. Not to disagree, but this is like saying people want to terminate voltage delivery to the home because they don't like radio.
> Highly specific subset of Internet.
Can I ask what you're basing that assertion on? The article makes it sound as if they were indeed referring to the internet in general: "46% said they would rather be young in a world without the internet altogether."
You are right to question my input. But, that said, I believe there is distinct confusion amongst internet consumers between the protocol stack and framing, and the forwarding of packets and applications services such as web and IM services. I wonder to what extent they have nuance in what "without the internet altogether" really means. Your point would be that they seem to be saying they really want the 1970s (or earlier back). Maybe thats right. It certainly seems to be based on the numbers. But the story arc mainly relates to social media, tiktok and like.
It's like when people say they want to go back to victorian values (of society at large) and forget that pre-dates antibiotics and anaesthesia. These people regret the socialised problems of being connected, misinformation at scale, loss of agency and genuine face-to-face communication and yearn for a simpler childhood. All well and good, but there's baby/bathwater latent in this.
I'll give them 24 hours until they ask for YouTube and Netflix again [1]. Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1348/
[1] And how is call that new video thing? TikTakToe?
Yeah. The xkcd is right.
But it was less stressful at the same time. The shared reality was the 6 pm news. No endless conspiracy theories.
The biggest question is why are they doing things they obviously dislike. Even peer pressure can't really explain it.
The same question can be asked of any kind of addictive behavior.
Easy they can get a feature phone and delete all social media accounts.
"[A] world without internet" != "A world where everyone else still uses the internet constantly but I don't"
The big assumption here is if they know what the internet is.
There was a time when it was a big series of tubes.