Matter of perspective. Earlier today, I told a coworker how happy I am to have been born in the late 1980’s, because it spared me from the internet culture of today: shallow, exploitative, otherizing and it encourages short term dopamine kicks. It’s a breeding ground for media illiteracy, bigotry, xenophobia and narrow mindedness in general - which is ironic, since it also makes the culminated knowledge of human kind easily accessible, which has the potential to open your mind if you have internet access and if you use the internet wisely. Anyway, in a way, the internet of today is a crystalization of everything that’s making me have a gloomy outlook on the future and keeping me from wanting to have children.
There’s a subset of gen z i see sometimes that are jealous we got to live that era. Damn shame the world kids have to grow up in now, no thanks!! So glad we weren’t born any later.
I’m younger than you (born 1995), but I share some of your feelings. The internet today is so different from how I remember it as a kid. I am immensely grateful that I got to experience some of that period of rapid change.
Matter of perspective. Earlier today, I told a coworker how happy I am to have been born in the late 1980’s, because it spared me from the internet culture of today: shallow, exploitative, otherizing and it encourages short term dopamine kicks. It’s a breeding ground for media illiteracy, bigotry, xenophobia and narrow mindedness in general - which is ironic, since it also makes the culminated knowledge of human kind easily accessible, which has the potential to open your mind if you have internet access and if you use the internet wisely. Anyway, in a way, the internet of today is a crystalization of everything that’s making me have a gloomy outlook on the future and keeping me from wanting to have children.
I’m forever privileged to have been part of the crowd that got to know and experience the internet as it developed.
It was a much more colorful and sociable world. It was also a lot quieter, because people mostly kept to themselves and the internet wasn’t 24/7.
There’s a subset of gen z i see sometimes that are jealous we got to live that era. Damn shame the world kids have to grow up in now, no thanks!! So glad we weren’t born any later.
I’m younger than you (born 1995), but I share some of your feelings. The internet today is so different from how I remember it as a kid. I am immensely grateful that I got to experience some of that period of rapid change.