The influence of the Internet on your life

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How has the internet influenced your life? How did you get introduced to it? What has it done to help you, if it's even helped you at all? I want to know your experiences! Regarding myself, the Internet (and the ever-changing landscape of culture that bubbles around it) has largely contributed into me becoming the antisocial introverted freak that I am today. I remember growing up my older sibling would show me screamer videos on YouTube. Like the k-fee ad or the rocking chair one. If you know, you know.

Even though I dislike Facebook for various reasons, it's been very helpful in keeping me in touch with people, both locally and also people I knew in high school. It's also helped in remembering the names of people I don't know well so I can say hello to them if I run into them at an event. And speaking of events, it's also been a godsend for letting me know what is happening around town, like music performances and art openings where people I know will also be there (because facebook tells you if your "friends" responded to an event).

As far as negative things, many years ago I was a member of a forum for fans of a band and at first it seemed very fun and silly and then it turned dark, with bullying and piling on and the like. Now I try not to express many opinions or to express them somewhat gently. I don't always succeed.

I also use tumblr which doesn't have comments and you can just post images and not really directly interact with anyone, except by liking of reblogging their images. Instagram also is a place where arguments tend to be unlikely and I only follow people I know or friends of friends.

I upgraded my Portastudio (4-track music recording machine) to a music computer, and found out that I could connect to the Internet on it, so I did. Mainly at first it was just to get new drivers and soundbanks for my sound card and to join a users' group for my music program (Logic Audio), but I kept finding more and more new things. They also had the Internet at work. They gave us all email accounts, and I used to download large music-related files on their broadband and take them home when they were too big for my dial-up connection.

It's influenced my life a lot. Mostly I've used it for getting free programs, music and movies, but also for information about practically everything, for buying stuff from Amazon, buying train tickets, plane tickets, Internet banking, communicating with friends, family and service providers.

It's been extremely useful and I don't see much content that annoys me, as I use a lot of filtering, but I'm not happy with the huge amount of time I spend glued to a laptop these days.

It gives me instant access to special interests and research. I'm a bibliophile but I love being able to cross-reference with journals and academic pulbications (e.g., JSTOR).

I have agoraphobia so I do all my shopping online and don't have to leave the house for groceries, gifts, or anything.

I can listen to music that I don't own on vinyl.

I can write, whether on my blog or for work-related and volunteer projects.

I use Messenger to talk to my kids even when they're in the house. Then I have a record of what we said.

I can share pictures with my mother's digital photo frame without having to visit her (Whoops).

I've made some lifelong friends online, too.

I don't see any drawbacks.

I'm a Gen-Zer and it has had a significant impact on my life. I remember channels like Angry Video Game Nerd and watching a lot of his content growing up as early as 3rd grade, even though I wasn't supposed to

The premise of his videos are that he is a raging nerd who reviews video games. The premise alone sounds really immature and silly, but the writing and the way that he conveys his character is really good. Even if you are not interested in the subject matter, I think most people would be able to find enjoyment from his videos. He was a pioneer of the type of video content that we see on youtube all the time and his stuff has aged like fine wine.

I stopped keeping up with him because I feel as though his newer videos aren't all that funny, but I'd say I kept up with his new stuff up until 2014.

I still rewatch some of his older episodes every few months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dJXgJ1c4vY

My son and I have selective mutism so we prefer writing to speaking.
With my daughter it's just easier because she works from home.
She's always too busy at work to have a conversation.

I forgot about video conferences.
All of my therapy (OT, trauma, speech, etc.) has been online since 2020.
It's so much easier than having to drive places and pay parking.
I wear my pyjamas too.

I studied for most of my adult era qualifications online, including a degree and many years later, a postgraduate certificate, via distance learning which would have been a lot more difficult and cumbersome without the internet.

I have been in contact with people via instant messenger, whether it was MSN during high school, or Whatsapp in the current day, pretty much continuously since having an internet connection.

Online gaming was a large part of my life from about the age of 16 to 21 years old.

I play a lot of single player video games in the current day and if I have to, I can always use an online guide if I get stuck - for free! God bless the internet.

I have researched all kinds of things over the years on the internet, which have been useful.

I use Youtube a lot for listening to music.

I have used online shopping for many years in various forms.

I use Audible sometimes and other cloud-based internet services.

I use the internet a lot.

The Internet has had a very positive influence on my life.

I think the internet has had a partial negative effect on younger generations because it has reduced tolerance for boredom and empty time, which I think is necessary for thinking and contemplating, as well as for interacting with other people (because it takes more effort to find a person interesting when you have a screen at your fingertips loaded with all kinds of entertainment). The young people I know in real life seem to have lost the appeal of just hanging out, which I consider a huge loss.

I have very mixed feelings about the internet. Everyone around me (mostly young people) is always on their phone. When we're sitting around somewhere, we don't talk to each other, we look at our phones. If there's the tiniest moment with nothing to do, out comes the phone. When I have nothing to do I ponder the mysteries of life (or the mysteries of whatever pointless topic I'm thinking about lately). No one is really present anymore; they're always somewhere else.
At the same time, the internet has really helped me during times when without it I might have done much worse. I like being able to find whatever information I need (true or false) and connect with people when I have trouble doing so irl. So I'm glad it exists. I guess it's good and bad, like almost everything.

^
I'm much the same with my computer as I'd be with a smartphone if I had one, but I like to think that I'm doing creative, deep, intelligent things with it for the most part.

Either I would have eventually been more normal, like a square peg brutally forced into a round hole, or I would have took an early exit off the stage.

Because of people on the internet, I didn't feel as alone. They made the world broader and more colorful. They opened my eyes, showed me everything is perspective. What one calls strange or trash, might be normal or beautiful to another. The internet can bridge us together in ways that would probably never happen under other circumstances.

I was online before the internet existed, in the mid-1980s, via online services and bulletin boards. Read Indra Sinha's "The Cybergypsies" for an idea of how it was back then. It sparked an interest in programming. I still make a living at it today.

I met my beloved wife online. That was before online dating existed at all.

I work 100% remotely. That wouldn't be possible without the internet and high-speed data communications. (But it also wouldn't have been possible without the pandemic. If employers hadn't been forced to allow us to work from home, they would never have given us the chance in the first place.)

The internet enables me to keep in touch with friends all over the world. (Note that it's important to differentiate between the internet and (commercial) social media, which in my experience does not bring people together, but the exact opposite - it pushes them apart.)