this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023

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Majority of Americans Would Like to Return to Time Before Cell Phones, Internet, According to New Poll (www.thewrap.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

The idea is very different than the reality. The freedom of information, communication, and variety are so much better now.

Need a job, get a newspaper for classified ads and take whatever you can get, or start calling friends and networking when you're lucky to get a voicemail.

Want to unwind and watch something? You can spend all evening flipping through channel after channel of garbage.

Need to learn something, prepare to spend days going to different public libraries to find anything useful. Most people don't learn anything. Most people's only adult social connection is though religion. It is a small dumb world where I grew up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I called my grandfather when I wanted to learn something. The library was the backup if he didn't know. He was a well educated engineer, and my grandmother also had a university education and an excellent knowledge of literature.

I wouldn't mind killing off social media, but I have offline copies of Wikipedia for a reason. That shit is important.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, the amount of time you spent just isolated and bored was unfathomable to people today.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It was probably somewhat beneficial that we all had to go outside and do something through; but yeah in smaller places your only real option would be a church or bar. I miss being able to hang out at the mall, for example; where you’d bump into your friends etc and different groups where there. Was sometimes like a big party. Then again, I was also a kid, we still had arcades that weren’t just dirty ticket casinos.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Imagine going on a road trip and getting stuck somewhere 3 hours from home with no cell phone

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ah, the good old romantization of the things you don't know.

If they're so eager about it, they can try taking their hands off the phone, for change.

Edit: typo

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doesn’t change expectations of others for you to respond to work emails or other shit at all hours. Doesn’t bring back the days of concert going paying attention instead of 800 phones being held up to record some shitty angle that will never be watched again, or people being rude while checking out, or distracted driving.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Doesn’t change expectations of others for you to respond to work emails or other shit at all hours.

That was still a thing before the internet/cellphones. My dad would receive phone calls at home at all hours back in the 90s and he was just a low level manager. He just pretended to not be home. When work gave him a cell phone, he would just turn it off when he left work and pretend his phone died.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I wonder if 'majority of Americans' really means the guy who wrote this article.

Though in all seriousness I just cannot comprehend that there are people out there who really think the negatives of all this tech outweigh the positives.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What a stupid poll. I don't see what the article wants me to think, but it was probably a couched question, considering the article explicitly links the Internet to pedophiles, criminals, and people who advocate abolishing democracy.

No mention of the good things that the ability to instantly communicate around the world means. Or a reminder of how stupid things were before the Internet. Like vacuum tubes at Lowe's.

Even a 54 year old, the top age polled, has no idea what a world without Internet means, as they would have been in their early twenties as America Online was rolling out.

They probably expect it to be just a world where "Do Not Disturb" mode is enabled on their phones all the time while still having access to Netflix and credit card instant transactions and not balancing a checkbook.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't... No GPS or computerized banking, having to go to a physical store or order from a crappy catalog. Nah, no way would I ever.

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