In the 90s, I genuinely thought the Internet would cure loneliness. But it turns out that for me anyway the Internet addresses loneliness the way alcohol addresses anxiety.
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As a non-verbal autistic person, the internet changed my life. In a world were only 2.8% of the population speaks my language, I was suddenly able to speak yours.
In the 90s, alcohol always turned any social anxiety I had into seriously considering relationships with people I would’ve otherwise despised. Which I guess the internet can do nowadays too.
internet helped me in Shanghai as i was trying to get out of a stupor depression. from utter black of a supportive community [like Shanghai & Hk], Ai keeps my mind stimulated positively in SF!
HEY IF IT WASN"T FOR YOUTUBE< I WOULd have never discovered CrashCourse & blessed by you & your brother!
If we get to the other side of this horrid political climate, I will probably close my account; I only use social media to vent. Otherwise, I'm more than content in my own little world undisturbed. No pun, but to each his own. I'm good 👍😊
Tell us all what your hobbies are, what books you like to read, the music you love and make sure people can get to know you. You can make friends if you put forth an effort.
There was already a cure for it in the 90s. It's called community. But we are taught to distrust everyone around them from a young age. We really hate each other, in America.
I thought that after an adjustment period the www would bring information, education, understanding, community.... Been waiting 30 years now for that adjustment period to end. I remain hopeful.
Yup, turns out it's the education system. Spend an hour in a Jr high classroom in rural Washington State and one in rural Alabama for a smack in the face realization.
As a former teacher I agree there are a lot of problems in the education system. Without project based learning, which focuses on discovery, it is dull and meaningless. Teachers have to compete with the visual world of games, phones, and media. Now with ideology being pushed it is grim.
In the 90s, I lived two thousand miles from my parents and would have given a lot to have the easy internet connections that exist today. Currently I live so far from all of my friends that my life would be much lonelier without Facebook, Zoom, and other ways to connect with them via internet.
In the 90's, I was hanging out in an online "bar" called Tequila Sunrise. My cousin got close to someone there who got "engaged" to another member, then faked her own death--total drama and craziness, but a real education in that we can never really know anyone who gets to choose what they tell you.
For me, the internet in the 90s through say 2012, maybe 2015, did help battle loneliness and help me connect with people and build friendships. It's been heading steadily downhill since then and is now contributing to my loneliness. Which sucks.
It's like we got every bad consequence (most we didn't even think possible) and very few of anything good. We can't have anything nice because assholes ruin it for everyone and by it I mean society as a whole.
Unmanaged or unmonitored public comment sections are a little like graffiti. Sometimes when someone puts in lots of effort it can be beautiful, powerful and inspirational. But 90% is just trash, unwanted, and of no benefit to anyone.
It depends where on the internet I am. I feel like we say internet to describe one place when in reality it’s so many different places. Some of them can be really positive! Others are literal hell.
Are you not finding your peeps? I have very much missed mine since abandoning Xitter two years ago… but they are beginning to arrive here and it makes me so happy!
I thought it would cure mistruth. Eventually all that would be left would be truth, or honest differences of opinion where truth isn't certain. But surely blatant lies wouldn't stand up to the harsh light of the Internet! Oooooops.
Those days on CompuServe, spent connecting in The Loft and im’ing people randomly to learn new cultures and share thoughts on what is different and what is the same feel 10,000 years away now. And I’m not sure, if I knew what it would become, I would have adopted so fully.
It's a weird place being disabled and having my primary friends online and as wonderful as they are, I still feel something missing and need real life connection.
Maybe it's something weird like pheromones that you can't get online, but no amount of video chats replaces in person entirely for me.
As an undiagnosed autistic kid in the late 90s and early 2000s the internet absolutely helped me make lifelong friends when I had none. However, the nature and structure of the internet now where everything is monotizable and centralized, it's almost impossible to find real community online
In the late 90s and first decade or so of the 2000s the internet helped me (and many others) find community and make friends. Now it's designed to achieve the opposite.
I used to be a staunch defender of the internet as a good place but now I don't want my family's kids to come here.
THIS! I’ve got my first internet at 30, so i was an adult. Still, it allowed me to get to know and meet ppl around the world, which I wouldn’t otherwise, as I am unable to make friends if not by common interests. I am more interested in exchanging ideas than in peopling. But old forums and boards >
> seem to be dead now and their social media successors are one big source of frustration, full of ppl, who cannot even write in complete sentences. I am almost as starved for meaningful dialogue as I was before the www.
Thank you. A lot of internet apologists point out the first thing and forget the second.
I think it’s also true that if the old Internet were a drug prescribed to cure loneliness it would be like opioids. Great for some, but also tragic for most.
This is overly belaboring the analogy, but... The Internet today is a bit like everyone walking around with unrestricted access to heroine in their pocket.
Yeah, those of us who came of age in that era had the “good” internet, IMO. Some of those friendships are coming up on 20 years for me! But the internet is so fundamentally different now, it makes me sad. :(
i've got livejournal friends i've known for that long! i have traveled to see some of them, attended at least one wedding. we still keep tabs on each other. longest friendships of my life
I've moved a lot recently and I don't have many people around who care about me, so my internet friends keep me from losing touch entirely. but yeah, it's different for everyone and on the whole, not ideal
I think the internet can address loneliness to a point but you have to move beyond that point on your own and not everyone is able. I have made some of the best friends of my life online gaming but we took those friendships into real life.
I thought it would allow us to connect with people all over the world regardless of race, culture, or social standing. Turns out it uses that to further entrench us with people who only see the world the way we do.
bluesky was a great idea but the real answer is the one we had before twitter: tens of thousands of tiny forums each with like 100 or fewer active users
haha I am in several discord servers. I don't think I'm young anymore but many of the folks I engage with are in their early-to-mid-20s. Or in their 30s but super gay
I don't know if it's simply because I'm in a different place in life or what, but I can't seem to stick to being consistently active on Discord the way I could in the old forums.
Like Twitter and Bluesky, kinda scratch the itch, but being a place everyone goes to means there are also so many assholes and takes forever for them to face consequences, assuming they ever do.
There are very specific discord servers for small groups of friends or small niche hobbies - that’s what I’m talking about. Those aren’t at all subject to drive-by assholes the way Twitter or Reddit are, and the owners boot disruptive people immediately. Not talking about general severs with 1000’s.
The internet does help with loneliness. But, social media algorithms are focused not on connecting people, but on getting people to be addicted to their site so more people look at ads. This is the crux of the problem. Social media companies should be extremely tightly regulated.
Don't forget that arguments are engagement and traffic, so they're not incentivized to connect you but to accumulate opposing metrics and merge them into each other for the fighting.
There is no cure for loneliness. It is a part of who we are. But
If you’re alone and I’m alone
Let’s be alone together
We can have a drink and shoot the shit and talk about the weather
Cause, I know this world has got you shaking in your shoes…
If you’re alone and I’m alone
Let’s be alone together
But at least we had some fun while being lonely. Oh and insane high phone bills. Drinking definitely was cheaper than internet in 90s tho. Especially when you are me and wasted from half a beer…
All the internet really did was let bullies unionize, form group chats, and rebrand harassment as “discourse.” Bullying and harassment became a multiplayer game.
As an alcoholic who drank essentially to treat my anxiety (sober now, yay), this seems spot-on. Insofar as it's a SUPER effective treatment, except it causes you to destroy everything you touch, and hurt everyone you love.
This isn't to say positive things can't be done with the Internet; I'd say you're living proof of that, John. Just that using it for human connection as a replacement for being in a room with someone, experiencing actual interaction, is inherently destructive.
The internet seperated everyone. And yes I am lonely too and I worry how I'll ever make new friends. Around 2014 is when I noticed everyone had a problem with it. I miss hanging out with people. I'd trade my phone for a weekend of being in some good company anyday.
The whole world is becoming more and more isolated from one another. It's not a good thing. Now when I go into restaurants, I can't even order from a human being! And people don't want to talk on the phone anymore?! Only texts?
It's very bad for us, I believe.
CURED. Go, to heaven pal.
Angels of ur sort are There!
This 'middle world' is a MIXED place. If u haven't 😳 realized it then Learned. U have this 🕊 & that 😈, then u (🤣🤪🤭🤫🙄😬😳🥹🥱☠️💩)that's Alot...u understand Everything/Any about u yet...Oops both dads are helping u w/🤐. Yeah u talk/think/want so much.😒
This is asking the wrong question, making the wrong assumption. Mediated experience is never a solution for loneliness. You can be alone without be lonely. It is both an individual and a societal problem. The answer is found in the intersection of the two.
By design 🙁 It started out with email, aim, meetups and memes (Myspace) and ended with ads, sales, posts hidden, propaganda and boomers (Facebook). The internet was never nice, but it did used to be less lonely.
Comments
HEY IF IT WASN"T FOR YOUTUBE< I WOULd have never discovered CrashCourse & blessed by you & your brother!
There was so much promise in what it all COULD be. How it could bridge gaps between people. And it does… kind of.
But it’s a tool like any other: It can unite and divide all the same.
But also, they can have negative impacts, such as liver disease and loneliness.
Although, with the internet, I think it’s specifically social media and public comment sections.
Well, $#!+!
Maybe it's something weird like pheromones that you can't get online, but no amount of video chats replaces in person entirely for me.
In the late 90s and first decade or so of the 2000s the internet helped me (and many others) find community and make friends. Now it's designed to achieve the opposite.
I used to be a staunch defender of the internet as a good place but now I don't want my family's kids to come here.
I think it’s also true that if the old Internet were a drug prescribed to cure loneliness it would be like opioids. Great for some, but also tragic for most.
This is overly belaboring the analogy, but... The Internet today is a bit like everyone walking around with unrestricted access to heroine in their pocket.
Real though
The internet addresses the need for social interaction like canned soup addresses nutrition.
Sure it's not ideal as a steady diet but it's better than starving.
I am glad the internet exists
outside
look around
change of view
breathe
In a way, they were right.
If you’re alone and I’m alone
Let’s be alone together
We can have a drink and shoot the shit and talk about the weather
Cause, I know this world has got you shaking in your shoes…
If you’re alone and I’m alone
Let’s be alone together
Here is for sharing media.
But social chat apps allow you to meet and speak to people directly. You can get long term friends if you join the right spaces.
I'm closer to discord friends than a lot of people I met in real life.
It's very bad for us, I believe.
https://bsky.app/profile/drewharwell.com/post/3lo4foide3s2g
Angels of ur sort are There!
This 'middle world' is a MIXED place. If u haven't 😳 realized it then Learned. U have this 🕊 & that 😈, then u (🤣🤪🤭🤫🙄😬😳🥹🥱☠️💩)that's Alot...u understand Everything/Any about u yet...Oops both dads are helping u w/🤐. Yeah u talk/think/want so much.😒