I grew up with the Internet as it existed around the turn of the century. There is a YouTube video here to help jot your memory. What was it like?
Help computer.
What is the Internet now?
Help. Computer.
Everything is now motivated by the amount of attention that it generates. Nothing else matters because attention is profit. Profit generation is the only thing a corporation exits to do. The Internet is the single greatest invention in history and it has been colonized by those who are determined to ensure it makes them as much money as it possibly can. They now own much of the critical infrastructure of the Internet, too.
It is difficult to put into words how much things have changed. I have enjoyed throttling back my Internet experience. There is absolutely nothing worthwhile that I miss about social media. In fact, now that I am not bombarded with the false sense of friendship with someone simply because their content is delivered to my phone, I feel much happier. Connections can happen online, yes, but they are markedly different and shallower than organic, in-person interaction.
More importantly, it does not satiate. Interaction on the Internet leaves me feeling lonelier. I have talked about this some with friends and a therapist and this does not seem to be an isolated issue.
Where is everybody?
The next time you go out — the store, waiting for coffee, the movies — take some time to scan the room and count the number of people who are actually present. In the moment, paying attention, engaged. Not on their phones, critically.
I am willing to bet it is well less than half, every time you check. Marshall McLuhan wrote in Understanding Media that “[A]ll technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous systems to increase power and speed.” He wrote this in 1964, well before the Internet existed. Much of what McLuhan focused on involved television.
We really, really need to revisit McLuhan’s work as a society and start talking about what the Internet does to the soul.