Ask Lemmy

I was told that I was as evil as the BTK killer a couple days ago. That was because I think circumcision is bad and female genital mutilation is worse. A couple weeks prior I was called a few dozen different awful things in a many many page dissertation about how evil I am. That one, because I made a one sentence joke about Hasan then trolled a 5 page response to it. So, idk maybe enough internet.

Fuck no I'm not, I'm just continuing to use it in ways I want rather than that make money for billionaires.

I'm not going to completely give up on it, but I'm finding ways to be more selective about how I use it. I'm moving away from it gradually, as going cold turkey has never worked for me in the past. I've started buying physical books when I can, working on hobby stuff more, going outside to exercise, etc.

Corporate social media is outright abusing people's minds for profit and is wholly unethical. It should be burnt to the ground and only mentioned as a cautionary tale. Anything with an algorithm should be treated with the same kind of caution we use for hard drugs. Honestly, I'm not sure any form of social media is good for your mental health anymore, but at least federated socials are organic and free range, so to speak.

Streaming and gaming I'm more conflicted about. I feel it's obvious that the current business models most streaming and gaming companies use have contributed to a decline in quality and artistry in our media. Microtransactions in games should be held in the same low regard as corporate social media. However, I don't think giving people access to a broader selection of content is harmful in general, it's just the constant price hikes, seemingly arbitrary cancellations and removals, and shifting of content from one service to another that ruins it. With product placement becoming an accepted practice, we're seeing more and more movies and TV becoming ad vehicles and propaganda platforms... But we could have a nice thing if creators were respected and consumers treated fairly by the major streaming services. Sadly, that's not likely to happen unless the money dries up.

News... News is awful. Regan dealt broadcast news a fatal wound by repealing the fairness doctrine, but it was Facebook that finally buried it. When more people started to access news content through Facebook and Twitter than from actually watching the channel, news networks adapted by creating content that plays well in the attention economy, which basically means they generate as much rage-bait as possible. If it's not outright propaganda or apology peices then it's just political gossip aimed and pissing one demographic or another off. There's not much point in consuming any news except long format articles from a few select sources any more.

Interacting with people... Back in the heyday of forums you could find a wealth of info and helpful people to answer questions on almost any topic. But most of those forums had a miscellaneous or off topic board where the chronically online could talk about what ever they wanted. Those places were always a minefield of trolling, misinfo, and general assholery. That's basically what smartphones turned the Internet into, one giant off-topic section full of angry, chronically online people. I don't try to find online friends anymore...

For me, I limit devices to specific purposes. My phone does calls, messaging, and the few socials I interact with plus occasional music for workouts. My tablet only plays music, has a limited selection of games, and my e-reader apps (no socials, no streaming, etc.). TV is only for streaming video. My laptop I'll occasionally access Lemmy on, look up hobby stuff, and do online shopping with. Any gaming is on a steam deck these days, and usually single-player offline titles. Setting things up this way helps me avoid doom scrolling, buying shit I don't need, consuming mindless Netflix content, and buying in to AAA game hype. It's not perfect, but somehow it helps a little.

Your mileage may vary.

Good luck with that

I mean I gave up on web 3.0, bloated to hell web pages and telemetry shit. Stick on the small web and fediverse much as you can. Its still fun but it's like music, you have to look hard to find good things now because its not right out there in front of you because there's too much of it.

Instead of giving up, keep learning so you can explain and help the non tech illiterate how to run their own servers and docker containers etc etc for when every application requires a brain chip supplied by musky to log in. A lot of the normies are lost right now at how all this works and no one is explaining it to them. Now, 98% won't listen to you, but you can try

I viciously “edit” the internet as much as I can. I block toxic social networks and have deleted any accounts I had on them. There’s a Firefox plugin that lets you individually block sites in search results so you reduce scraper garbage SEO sites in your results. PiHole, uBlock, and whatever else that is available to block ads, tracking, etc. “-ai” when searching. Use SearXNG or non-big data search tools when able.

News comes from places like AP or Reuters. Not perfect, but better than half-true at best MSM clickbait.

It sucks. It takes work to enjoy what used to be better a decade ago, but let’s face it it’s been steadily downhill since ‘10 or so. I truly miss the “old” web. Yeah, it had its own problems, but it was far, far better and more egalitarian than this war zone of monetization and manipulation we have today.

In my free time on the weekends I disconnect and go outside and do stuff like hiking, climbing, airsofting, archery; then I come back to reality and it sucks

My internet experience is heavily filtered. I don’t see ads, I mostly focus on local news and events, and have certain keywords filtered here. It’s been so nice. It’s much less stressful dealing with my local and state community than everything else.

It’s hard to get a recipe off the internet without having to hunt for it after a 14 mile long backstory no one on earth cares about. To me, that sums up the internet. It’s damn near dead.

Internet is a great to access information and people but most of the internet is garbage we need to promote quality sources and ethical technology practices

No, not "off" the internet.

Off the big corporate-driven soulless sites, maybe. Smaller discussion groups/forums, dedicated services, etc. still works. It's less tedious, less eating your brain.

Basically, going back to internet before central planetary services that feed on everyone being miserable.

I always viewed the Internet as a kind of alternate reality growing up. But, then that started to change once "social networks" started taking off and all the normies (as some people refer to it now) started using it. Then it kind of started becoming almost "realer" than IRL, with algos optimized to manipulate people, and sophisticated propaganda campaigns. About 5 years ago, I noticed politicians started using language taken from the "gamergate" discourse. Now, the US admin is transparently trying to control discourse on the largest platforms, and official government institutions are poorly shit-posting.

So, yeah, it's kinda disheartening how one of the greatest communication tools has turned into a tool for control. Though, in hindsight, I guess I should've seen this coming, even from fiction created a century ago. I think I remember some person saying that the Nazi regime wouldn't have been possible without the invention of the radio.

I worry more what the internet is doing to children than to our rotten heads. Both are harmful but I have kids, and well once you give them a smartphone then who knows. Will some big corp ask them for face id and personal data? Fuck that but apparently it’s unavoidable

Nope. Just about all the good things in my life, arrive through the intertubes. My anime, games, hentai, history videos, they are only really practical because of the internet.

The only pleasure I have outside the internet is food. And honestly, eating for pleasure is far more expensive than a good game. For $30, I can have at least a month of amusement. A good meal? Just a day of contentment.

Maybe I would feel differently if I could spend money without feeling anxiety...but meatbag activities like visiting third places, fills me with fiscal dread. I cannot leave my room often, else I risk poverty finally overtaking me.

I am getting there.

I've been fighting the good fight online and off for decades now, and people have broadly gotten so dense and people's worst behavior and worst manners are now considered identities and rights, and it's so massively annoying that I have grown tired of telling people to shut the fuck up about shit that either harms other people or harms themselves.

Now everyone you interact with is not trying to interact with you specifically, but trying to make something they can clip, snip or appeal to an audience with for views, upvotes and attention. They don't care about exchange, they care about getting attention from their peers.

At least in real-life (whatever that means) people are on their best behavior when you're larger than them. I really get how some cranky old dudes are always just looking for a fight.

The anonymity of the internet combined with it's openness and freedom to shit on any conversation and muddy every water and poison any well, has broadly done more harm than good, and I am really weighing the value it has for marginalized people and the like over the overall harm it's doing TO marginalized people and the like. I am tired of running defense for people who shit on my help, I am tired of having to argue about the most basic bullshit like empathy and civility or choosing to not be civil when required, because there's always either some 13-year-old who just learned they can be treated like an adult online, or some tweet-farmer in India pretending to be from my country, doing their best to take over the conversation and make it about themselves and their absolutely psychotic world-views or rage-bait.

Broadly, the worst people in the world bring out the worst in others, and that's far more infectious than good people being good because our species is all about survival, and we fight to survive.

We probably need to take away the freedom honesty. Just like China was forward thinking and employed a social credit score and took away privacy and outside influence from their internet, it sounds horrific but I totally get it. We probably will do that all over the world when this reaches a head. I don't trust our current government institutions in the west to do it right, but the internet is killing our society, people aren't having relationships anymore, people aren't making friends, people just imagine the worst about each other and retreat to private echo chambers and AI chatbots that suck them off.

Every other post on this platform is political.

I really couldn't care less about politics right now...

Please tell me if there is a way to turn off political stuff...

Not at all. Look at this beautiful corner we have made here.

I'll tell you right now: many of those old corners of the internet... Are still there. A lot aren't, but a lot still are. Seek them out, it's worth it.

No. I might use it less often, but it's also a more healthy relationship instead of what tech bros wanted.

you inspired me to check out ytmnd. fucking front page has an epstein contest.

i'm not entirely sure if i was on a tour of an active particle accelerator if i wouldn't take a dive just to try to get us all on a different universe. godsdamned weasels

I believe that life on the internet will reside in private, invite only communities. Public spaces will only get worse and worse.

Lemmy is a salvation spot for me, been an internet denizen since before I was a teen, it has been sad to see it slide into popularity contest/mass consumerism garbage. But I enjoy my Minecraft videos I've been watching for over a decade and getting to chat about homelab/Linux stuff as an alternative.

Its not like the real world (in the us at least) is doing any better lmao

I keep a book on my person at all times now. Instead of mindlessly grabbing my phone (internet propaganda portal), I'll grab the book instead. Been doing it about six months now, I like it a lot. I still havnt finished a book, I jump from one to the other very often, but I'm reading much more.

Its okay to sign off. I had a panic attack two weeks ago, and basically had to sign off for a time. I'm still keeping distance from the internet though. Renewing my love of reading has been a serious positive though.

Yup, I've gotten much more into the smolweb, niche websites and the dark web, where some parts still feel like a place I can breathe.

I've given up on the super-corporate side of the Internet.

99% of my Internet use is Mastodon and Lemmy, both of which don't really represent "the Internet". I sail the high seas occasionally to help meet my other needs.

Yes, multiplayer gaming is toxic as hell. If I'm doing that, I have chat turned off, but mostly I've managed to finagle the Internet into my own personal, cozy little Hobbiton derivative, so it doesn't feel quite so toxic to me as it might to the population at large.