# How the Internet is changing society **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 11, 2012, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-internet-is-changing-society/612522 "2012-02-11T15:30:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-internet-is-changing-society/612522/21 "2012-02-13T04:16:07Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > It’s changing us completely. Especially as it pertains to ones privacy. Just look at us 15 years ago. We were very private people. It would never even occur to us to share with our entire circle of friends what we had for dinner last night. On some thing called Facebook. I agree that some privacy issues may turn out to be important but I don’t like your example. I think that there are three groups of people. Those who don’t use facebook or twitter to update their circle with trivial detail. Those who do for a short time till the novelty wears off. And those who do so and will continue to do so into the future. Neither the first or second groups have undergone any meaningful change, and the third group were the group who would have nattered with their friends about trivial detail even pre-internet, but will now just do so more efficiently. > [@Duckster](#): > > If your view is widely held by people of your age, I feel sorry for you. You apparently did not receive a basic education in elementary through high school that I did. The skills for using the Internet should have been taught to you long before your fingers ever touched a keyboard. Firstly I don’t think **gracer** is talking about him/her self. Secondly I think you miss the point (perhaps as a consequence of your readiness to indulge yourself in scolding). There have always been some people in society who can’t access information and consequently miss out on socio-economic benefit. However, my guess is that pre-internet there were three broad groups: 1/ those whose skills were too poor to obtain the information that they needed, 2/ those who had the skills to obtain information but probably didn’t because of lack of easy access, laziness, time poverty etc 3/ those who had the skills and used them. Those same three groups probably exist but those in 1/ will have remained where they are, while many former members of 2/ will have become members of 3/, and the members of 3/ will have grown and advanced. End result? Group 1/ is or will become even more of an underclass than they would otherwise have been. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-internet-is-changing-society/612522/22 "2012-02-13T11:24:16Z")
Thanks **Princhester**! **Duckster** , please go back and read what I wrote before you say silly things. My worry is exactly as **Princhester** explained. The gap is widening, and it was widely discussed as part of the PIPA debate. I am at one of the UK’s top universities. Yet there are people here who can deal with facebook, but who panic if you want to make a presentation online. Or who aren’t as good as others at finding information, be it through google scholar or through other communities. They can’t deal with information online, they want a book. I’ve told many people how to use “command + f”, which is pretty basic when dealing with information. Working with paper is not the way forward, it’s not the way things will be happening in the future, but there are people who can’t deal with that. Those people are literate, from socio-economically advantaged backgrounds, highly intelligent and educated. That’s the difference with pre-internet times. I’m sure they’ve had a computer class in secondary school. But that’s exactly not the point. The times are changing so fast, it’s up to you to keep up. People who don’t fall behind drastically. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-internet-is-changing-society/612522/23 "2012-02-13T11:37:02Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > How is the internet REALLY changing society? It’s not like the industrial revolution where they were inventing stuff like cars, railroads, steam engines, skyscrapers and airplanes. Stuff that actually made real fundamental changes to society. All our top research these days seems to go into figuring out new algorithms for complex financial instruments and social networking sites. > > I would say that the internet is actually making people MORE isolated, not less. It lets people spend long hours online reinforcing their pre-existing beliefs by reading the inane postings of people who already agree with them. It lets them safely belittle those they don’t agree with without having to worry about any real social consequences. > > It’s great that someone in Bumfuck, Wherever can “feel” connected by going online or high school “friends” you barely talked to in high school can reconnect with you after 10 years. But those connections are no more “real” than s relationship with porn is real. > > And the fact that you now have this time-sink to occupy you makes it less likely you’ll move out of Bumfuck to get some real life experiences or make some real friends. While its true people often live in little online bubbles, the bubble can be amazingly diverse. I remember the social groups on IRC it would be totally random, Australians and Israelis and whoever was online at the moment. Thats something that is brand new in the realm of human experience, two people in a group I was in(that I know of) moved to another country to pursue a relationship. Thats normal and not odd at all to me, but baffling to the older crowd. Its only going to increase. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-internet-is-changing-society/612522/24 "2012-02-14T03:23:20Z")
> [@grude](#): > > While its true people often live in little online bubbles, the bubble can be amazingly diverse. I remember the social groups on IRC it would be totally random, Australians and Israelis and whoever was online at the moment. > > Thats something that is brand new in the realm of human experience, two people in a group I was in(that I know of) moved to another country to pursue a relationship. Thats normal and not odd at all to me, but baffling to the older crowd. > Its only going to increase. I think that’s great if it ends up inspiring you to visit Austrailia or Israel or helps you start a relationship with someone. Otherwise you are just reading about other people doing it. The way I look at it is the internet is a powerful tool for planning an awesome vacation. It shouldn’t take the place of actually going on one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-internet-is-changing-society/612522.md?page=1)