Would everything be better if the internet died?

I was thinking about this the other day. Imagine if the internet as we know it today was somehow disrupted or completely turned off. No more social media. No more streaming video. No more online shopping. No more online multiplayer gaming. Would that take us back to a better time, or is the internet so essential to our lives now that there would just be widespread chaos?

I grew up with no internet on the 90’s and had a great time.

I think in the long run it would be just fine. Specially without social media

Do enjoy playing games online, multiplayer takes up a huge section of my gaming enjoyment. But we had multiplayer pre-online gaming so it's not entirely lost without the internet.

Stores are also just that. Businesses to sell. Online is one option to get customers to buy products. And happens to be easily accessible to a huge population. They'd sell stuff in your sleep if they could. And I note that only partly-jokingly as someone who works in marketing.

Overall the internet is a useful tool for communication, education, and storing data. All three of these are even used in these gaming forums. I learned to write english using these gaming forums.

However a 'eager' group of people have a way of making something useful and turning it into a toxic environment.

Self- centred, egotistical, mentally unstable, bigots. All in the name of "Hey it was only a joke". All in varying degrees of passive aggression and mockery. And don't mistake these whiny divas as cool they're a mess, and most certainly not how everyone should act on the internet.

Expressing yourself is one thing; telling someone to kill themselves or drink bleach is another. Heck I've been called Hitler on this very website before simply for having a gaming counter opinion on a hot topic (it was about female portrayals in video games)

A lot of it boils down to some feel if they have a take on a subject; everyone has to agree on it, as though it's a fact. Even if they present it as a question. No option for counter opinions or different views on a subject; you know like in a real conversation. If you do, they'll rage like no-tomorrow.

Just because someone else is an extreme vocal narcissist doesn't mean we have to join them. Act like the person you are, not the users you read.

Or maybe everyone acting a fool just has terrible communication skills and barely speaks to real people. I dunno.

Eitherway before you retaliate to someone for petty reasons think to yourself, why did you come to that community in the first place? in this case it would be likely to chat about games to other people who enjoy the same hobby. And if it was to be a whiny child and throw out anger issues? consider therapy.

One of the things really like about the internet, back in the day, aside from Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, wouldn't really get Asian cinema (or TV shows over here) at all.

Aside from, Monkey, which became a pop culture thing.

But outside of that you really wouldn't be exposed to stuff outside of the typical UK/America and odd foreign thing.

Nowdays can jump on Youtube and watch entire sets of 60 episode Chinese and Korean shows in 2 minutes. Able to watch entire catalogues of martial arts movies like Shaw Brothers on a whim.

Just from a purely entertainment, like, cultural standpoint or whatever, this is fantastic.

As for the rest of it, sure the benefits outweigh the downsides. Like any powerful tool it can and will be abused. Be it horrible Darkweb shit or governments flooding the place with disinformation.

Or Elon Musk, who's just an asshole.

Social media needs oversight. Misinformation and spreading hate should not be tolerated. But there are advantages to the internet if you use it correctly.

A simple yes or no question that requires no elaboration: would the world be a better place without the internet? Yes.

Probably would be better. There's no need for it at all. It hasn't made life better.

@LJS9502_basic: Social media certainly has brought out the evil in a lot of people. But that's bound to happen when you bring a large group of people with different backgrounds and opinions on things together into one place. I don't know if there is any way to police it, other than to shut it down. Because even if you do try to control it, people will complain about censorship and their freedom of speech being violated.

I also believe that you can't kill social media without killing the internet all together. While it technically is possible to just close social media, the two have essentially become intertwined at this point. You can't get rid of one without getting rid of the other.

I think it depends. I grew up with AOL, but in my soul I'm a country boy, despite growing up in the city. I can easily let go of technology, as I have done so in the past when I needed to. Technology is nice and can help with quality of life, but ultimately my loves are community, nature, and God. :) I do think the youth, perhaps even my generation, would have a hard time letting go of it.

@dariency: Are you talking about the general user / consumer end of the internet?

The internet is an integral part of public and private infrastructure. If you "got rid of the internet", everything from government operations to the free market would have to redesign how they function.

@statisticalpc: That's part of the problem. We rely so much on the internet today that if something were to happen to it society would cease to function, at least for a bit. There needs to be a backup plan.

no

it is a MASSIVELY powerful tool. like any tool it can be misused by assholes.

like saying, would the world be better off without cars because some shitheads use them as weapons.

Absolutely not.

The internet has caused a lot of harm, but the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

I grew up without internet and I remember it, we got by just fine, I think we would be OK without internet...it's just such a powerful tool, such a great distributer of information (both good and bad)...it would be a huge loss.

That's not even accounting for the more luxury-based aspects of the internet--games, movies, music--and when you factor that is, the answer is obvious.

Any problems we have with the internet are not actually stemming from the internet; the problem is people lack critical thinking skills. They refuse to go out and get context. It's why K-12 education (in the US) needs to incorporate philosophy and critical thinking courses, among others. We need to teach kids how to think for themselves, pull information from multiple sources, etc.

Regulation would also help as far as social media, news media, etc. goes as well.

A life without Internet should be a no to that and the Internet was way more useful than the harm it did. Social Media however is the real enemy and everything would be better without social media. The basic Internet is fine, Social Media however needs to die and it was a mistake.

The internet is a great invention, but like every thing there are individuals that will use it for the wrong purpose to do damage to others.

@davillain: There's no doubt the internet is a powerful tool and is very helpful. But at the same time, I believe the internet has made us more lazy and divided than ever. If the internet suddenly went away, the young generation, including some of my fellow millennials, would be lost and wouldn't know what to do with themselves. I think this is very dangerous.

Social media will continue to exist as long as the internet exists. Even if sites like Twitter/X and Facebook go belly up, something else will take their place. Social media has been rooted into our lives as much as the general internet at this point.

@dariency: you just gave to limit the use, at least the non work use.

Nah. People would find ways to be assholes without it. But sure, the internet is a source to a lot of crap that wouldn't exist without it. It's also a source to a lot of good that I wouldn't want to sacrifice.

What you're doing here is social media, and this is harmless. I guess you mean facebook and twitter or what the **** there is now and what they're called. And yeah, it's terrible. But I'm not using it and no one is pushing me to use it, so it's not like I need to care.

The infrastructure from before the internet is still mostly intact, so it won't be the apocalypse if it was all gone tomorrow. It will be a massive disaster for the financial sector though.

Everything would be so inefficient. Sounds awful. You might not realize everything you would be giving up. Besides... I want to see where this AI stuff goes.

As is, we have the option not to participate in social media and other forms of content that can be harmful.

@pyro1245: A.I. is a whole other can of worms. When you start using A.I. to take the place of humans, that's going too far imo.

No, to think just seems like people being nostalgic because they were younger when they think back to when internet either wasn't a thing, or at least wasn't very developed.

No. I'd miss googling too much.

This argument was perfectly captured 20 years ago.

i'm super nostalgic for having to download pictures in multiple parts from text only bulletin boards as freaking ascii THEN having to stitch and re-encode them into a GIF and hope for the best....

those were the days

Is everything better with the internet? Entertainment culture sucks total ass now and the internet surely is one of the main reasons for that. All that information readily avaible anywhere in the world... and people are still as dumb as shit. As a matter of fact, it looks like you're getting more stupid.

And of course... information = energy = environmental system disruption

Nope. We wouldnt be able to pay contactless :'(

@omegamaster: That's exactly right. Consumers think of the Internet as social media sites and streaming services, but a LOT of our infrastructure is enabled by it. We process thousands of transactions per day without human involvement. We approve hundreds of applications a day without a person looking at them, with work from a dozen vendors occuring on each within seconds. That process used to involve an army of underwriters and bank personnel, and it used to take months.

Without the internet everything would be slower. Without it, everything would be more expensive.

Nope.

Things would be worse. Our economic infrastructure more or less relies on the internet nowadays. Being really important for coordination too. Be it for defense, academia or any other important communication.

The internet is also great for educational purposes.

Where I live, the internet actually died for about 5 days a few years ago. This cost businesses in my area millions of dollars in damages.

Maybe, maybe not.

I remember symptoms of the internet existing during landlines days. Stories of celebrity deaths happened by word of mouth and disinformation existed by way through phenomena much like urban legends do.

I think a more equitable societies would in large part help alleviate the anxieties that make people susceptible to manipulation, and these days people have loads of anxieties tied to day to day living it's impossible not to let misinformation and/or socially divisive hot button issues driving a wedge toward greater unification and stability.

We were not immune to such manipulation before the internet. Institutions of power and influence manipulate public perception toward someone's ulterior motives. For decades Americans have been conditioned to believe sugary carb loaded cereals were the cornerstone of a nutritious breakfast and now we have an unmitigated obesity and diabetes epidemic and only recently learning nutritional education was fabricated by the industries that profited from them. This also points to failures in government institutions who promote health and safety amd are controlled by politicians who take campaign contributions from industry and influenced by lobbyists. Faith in institutions is what I think further fuels divisive issues and mistrust and again makes people susceptible to disinformation.

As for effect of just immediately turning off internet like someone could flip a switch, world would spiral into chaos near immediately.

Even in times of more relative social stability, economies feed on people's anxiety, be it the news that sells fear, ads that sell you anxiety of not having the perfect smile or body order or laundry detergents and fabric softeners. Fear is manipulative tool.

I remember getting AOL back in 1998 and it was interesting though I never was online 24/7 like my brother was chatting in chatrooms and surfing the web. Definitely my brother's nephews would be bored as they are always on YouTube or Tiktok and need online for gaming.

I didn't have the intenet when I was a kid and had a great childhood. But I wish I had it when I entered the University. It is much easier to study with the home internet.

Would you settle for half?

A sudden and complete shutdown of the internet would have profound consequences, disrupting communication, the economy, entertainment, education, and government services. Social media's role in information sharing and networking would be lost, impacting social connections. The global economy, heavily reliant on e-commerce and online services, would face disruptions. https://safardubai.com/

No, turning off the internet wholesale wouldn't make everything better. Most of the internet is actually pretty okay.

It's social media that is the cancer that needs to be shut off. One of humanity's great mistakes, IMO. The day Xhitter, Farcebook, DickCock et al. die is the day I pop a champagne (in defiance of my doctor's orders) and throw a little party.