Has the Internet become less fun and too angry?

[birchesgreen]

I find that social media is a lot more advertisement heavy, algorithm driven, and seems to suggest random threads my friends have commented on, rather than what they have chosen to share with me. I think all of these make it signifiantly worse - I used to enjoy late-2000's social media, but now I mainly use it as a messaging service.

The internet is general has changed from being what you want to look at to what big corporations want you to look it. Its still possible to do the former but getting more difficult as time goes on.

 

[Fenchurch SP]

The internet is general has changed from being what you want to look at to what big corporations want you to look it. Its still possible to do the former but getting more difficult as time goes on.

Search engines are a good example of this. You used to be able to enter a few keywords and be pointed to sites with relevant information, now the results are swamped with unconnected commercial websites. Quote marks seem to be ignored as well.

 

[birchesgreen]

Search engines are a good example of this. You used to be able to enter a few keywords and be pointed to sites with relevant information, now the results are swamped with unconnected commercial websites. Quote marks seem to be ignored as well.

Yes paid search terms and content farms have ruined search engines.

 

[Purple Train]

Yes to all that. As an obvious example, we had far better and well-mannered discussions and debates on covid matters here than anywhere else I experienced.

You may think that because the majority of people agreed with you...

This forum is probably the closest approach to social media that I have ever used. I never used anything like Twitbook as they always seemed to want too much personal information, and I have zero interest in the activities / opinions of so-called "celebrities" - also I have better things to do with my time.....

Social media now has absolutely nothing to do with one's social life, in the way they've evolved. I use email and text message and that's about it, despite the fact that the vast majority of my friends and acquaintances live in different counties.
Perhaps "social media" needs renaming, or re-defining...?

 

[Tetchytyke]

As an obvious example, we had far better and well-mannered discussions and debates on covid matters here than anywhere else I experienced.

Whereas I thought it had become an echo-chamber and left the forum as a result. (People may say this was no bad thing.) The conversations about Covid if one happened to agree with lockdowns- or, in my case, at least understood that my island’s closed border gave me a quality of life not available elsewhere- were not particularly friendly.

Anyway.

Forums (fora?) have always been more nuanced, as it’s a long form of communication. You’ll get your vitriolic arguments and your flame-wars, yes, but generally people will take the time to type out coherent arguments even if one thinks the other person is spouting nonsense. We saw similar with early forms of social media, the likes of LiveJournal and Wordpress. Of course forums are often actively moderated which helps. Forums without moderators can be more “interesting”- just look at the car crash that is KiwiFarms.

Twitter and Facebook are all about the clicks. And the quickest way to click bait someone is to make them angry, and give them more stuff to make them angry about. Twitter used to be fairly sensible- robust, but you could have a conversation- but I left it in about 2017 as I felt it had just become a toxic cesspool. Clearly Elon Musk wasn’t going to improve that. Instagram used to be a really good photoblog site but now it’s the same as TikTok, serving up an endless diet of dashcam rage and teenage girls dancing in their pants.

The internet is general has changed from being what you want to look at to what big corporations want you to look it. Its still possible to do the former but getting more difficult as time goes on.

The social media giants don’t particularly care what you look at, so long as you’re looking at it on their platform. Which is why none of them seem willing or able to clamp down on hate speech, false information, or even the sharing of images of child sexual abuse. Twitter in particular don’t seem to mind if you’re looking at child sexual abuse as long as you’re looking at it on Twitter.

 

[birchesgreen]

The social media giants don’t particularly care what you look at, so long as you’re looking at it on their platform. Which is why none of them seem willing or able to clamp down on hate speech, false information, or even the sharing of images of child sexual abuse. Twitter in particular don’t seem to mind if you’re looking at child sexual abuse as long as you’re looking at it on Twitter.

Plus plenty of their adverts and promoted content.

 

[nlogax]

Whereas I thought it had become an echo-chamber and left the forum as a result.

Same.

Forums (fora?) have always been more nuanced, as it’s a long form of communication. You’ll get your vitriolic arguments and your flame-wars, yes, but generally people will take the time to type out coherent arguments even if one thinks the other person is spouting nonsense. We saw similar with early forms of social media, the likes of LiveJournal and Wordpress.

I can still remember the broad appeal LJ used to have before turning a bit, uh, Russian. Outside of forums long form still lives on via Substack and Medium but attention spans have really waned over the last ten to fifteen years.

 

[WAB]

They’ve reduced the number of moderators on twitter and it’s starting to show - lots of unpleasant stuff which would have been filtered out before is now being shown in the comments. Put me off twitter tbh.

 

[MikeWM]

You may think that because the majority of people agreed with you...

I don't think that is true - as a rather significant example, the vast majority of posters were *very* enthusiastic about the covid vaccines, and my significant scepticism on the matter was quite an outlier. Equally I was significantly more positive about potential repurposing of existing drugs than almost everyone else. But I was allowed to make my points, and 99% of the time they were debated calmly and reasonably. That was very much not the case pretty much anywhere else on the Internet, where people putting forward such views were either banned outright or called silly names.

Perhaps "social media" needs renaming, or re-defining...?

I'd not really thought about that before, but I think you have a good point.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I read something a while back saying that the heyday of Facebook was probably about 2015. I think I'd agree. Round about then your Nan posted her holiday snaps, you created an event for going to the pub with your mates etc and there was a fairly simple and largely public group functionality. There were ads but not disruptive ones, and you tended to see what your mates posted in reverse order.

It still has uses but it's now no longer that friendly place, and Whatsapp groups aren't really an effective substitute.

 

[Broucek]

[Facebook] still has uses but it's now no longer that friendly place, and Whatsapp groups aren't really an effective substitute.

One of my friends advsertised his (somewhat niche) car on a FB Group aimed at the car in question. He immediately got a load of quite hostile comments about the price that completely derailed the thread.

 

[Thirteen]

I accept that it's the places I visit with here being an exception having become less fun to communicate with others but perhaps my tolerance levels are just too low to argue with people.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I read something a while back saying that the heyday of Facebook was probably about 2015. I think I'd agree. Round about then your Nan posted her holiday snaps, you created an event for going to the pub with your mates etc and there was a fairly simple and largely public group functionality. There were ads but not disruptive ones, and you tended to see what your mates posted in reverse order.

It still has uses but it's now no longer that friendly place, and Whatsapp groups aren't really an effective substitute.

Facebook's problem was when they ruined their UI, making it look too cartoony and filling up with all these extra functions you'll never use.

Anyway, I think the internet has become awful, although growing up in the 2000s I was always warned about "popups", chat-rooms, viruses etc, so of course it had its dangers then. But I think things really started to change around 2010, if I'm honest. At least in this country, the election of that year created a national sense of anger that I think spilled out onto Twitter - causing it to become a machine to dump negative discourse. Over time, Twitter has become more important than the news to find the latest developments, meaning discourse is at our fingers every second of the day.

 

[RichJF]

The Internet reflects society.

In the early - mid 90s there was still optimism & excitement for the new millennium. Educational & novel.

Post 2010s it's now it's full of people getting offended at virtually nothing, clamouring to be centre of attention despite contributing zilch to society & full of pressure to be 'perfect'.

 

[dangie]

….. people have become too aggressive and opinionated….

It’s so easy to be aggressive and opinionated when sitting in front of a keyboard…..

 

[alex397]

The Internet reflects society.

In the early - mid 90s there was still optimism & excitement for the new millennium. Educational & novel.

Post 2010s it's now it's full of people getting offended at virtually nothing, clamouring to be centre of attention despite contributing zilch to society & full of pressure to be 'perfect'.

I disagree. The internet, and social media in particular, gives the impression that most people are angry and agressive with strong opinions on certain subjects. In reality, I don’t think most people are like that.

Social media, and media, makes a very big deal about the trans debate, cars vs bikes, covid restrictions (for and against), woke and anti-woke, Brexit and so on. However, in real life most people don’t have particularly strong opinions on these subjects. That’s my impression anyway. It’s a good idea not to presume that the media and social media reflects real life.

In my experience, the only topic I’ve seen/heard get heated is Brexit. Such as at work, in pubs and so on. But even then, I’d say most people arn’t particularly bothered by it.

The internet has perhaps let those with minority views become much more vocal.

 

[75A]

The internet has perhaps let those with minority views become much more vocal.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[PaulMc7]

Social media has become incredibly hostile in more recent years and as a result, I've got rid of my Twitter and I thought that would be the last thing I'd have got rid of not too long ago. One time, I had seen someone complaining to First Glasgow over buses being late and I advised them that there were multiple sets of roadworks on the route causing the delays. This led to the woman being rather insulting to me and then her partner looked me up on Facebook after I blocked both of them on Twitter to phone me through Messenger wanting me to go up to the area that they stayed in for a fight. This is just one of many times I've been threatened with violence over trivial topics so eventually I thought enough was enough and deleted my account.

Facebook is quickly following Twitter in becoming more hostile though. I find that people resort to insults far more quickly than they used to and a lot of the time, it's simply down to differences in opinion over the most basic topic.

If it wasn't for 13 years of memories and Facebook being my only way to contact some people, I'd probably have got rid of my account a long time ago.