Are people getting bored of the internet?

1. 61

   ryanpugsposted 8 years ago

   Just a broad question really, has the internet become boring?
   
   It feels like the internet used to be dominated by discussion (anonymous) and humour, and the outright weird.
   
   Now it feels like the internet serves primarily as a means of news consumption, for shopping, or for work based programs in the cloud.
   
   Forums are dead, blogging is dying, social sites are sanitised, widespread censorship. Social media seems to be dying out too, people still log on to facebook and twitter but increasingly participate less?
   
   I mean.... there is Reddit, which is perhaps still flying the flag for the internet of yesteryear, but do people feel like the internet has become a lot more dull and grey?
   
   Do people have sites that they really miss? Sites which they loved which are a shell of their former selves? I've got a long list, its all a bit depressing, forums which were once populated with hoards of likeminded and sociable people, and now all but deserted by all but a few people who haven't let go.
   
   Has facebook killed the internet? Google? Both? Is it privacy concerns, with people feeling that there is no such thing as internet privacy anymore and therefore people have become consumers rather than creators and participators? Or did the internet just run out of fresh ideas and everything became cliche?
   
   Or am I harking back to 'good old days' which didn't really exist?

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      Barbara Kayposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Everything has gotten kind of blah for me and most of my friends. I think Facebook did do this. Too many posts and too many political lies. I've just gotten tired of it all.

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      Sed-meposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      As long as there is online scrabble, the internet is relevant. 

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      NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I think sites like Facebook become boring because they end up as a field of ego indulgence and brain clutter. The Internet generally has become filled with the usual marketing propaganda and brainless topics too. However, the value I see in the Internet is that it can give us information we wouldn't have had before and connect people to take action on some pretty important things.

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      colorfuloneposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I read some reports that say the average person's attention span has decreased from 12 seconds down to 8, (that a Goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds),  because of computers and fast moving sites like Facebook, SmarPhones, iPads,...
      
      Interestingly, technology developers employees of Silicon Valley don't allow their child to use computers and such, or limit the use greatly, and do not send their kids to schools that have computers in class rooms. Steve Jobs said his kids never used an iPad, and that they limited how much technology their kids use. 
      
      There is a very good book by the former US Education Department Senior Policy Advisor Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt titled, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America".  YouTube has videos with her sharing her researched knowledge.
      
      Politicians are largely low tech people, so they apparently have knowledge of the effects.

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         Sed-meposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         And those are adults. Talk to anyone under the age of 30 and you can cut that in half.

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            colorfuloneposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Hi, Sed-me! 
            
            I have several friends under the age of 30 that I visit with and they have their eyes wide open.
            
            I do know about the 'dangerous people', who have only been harmed by globalism.  They tend to listen to the unlovely voices of common sense and logic, and use their own $$$ and votes to further those unlovely voices politically.  They are some of the most unstable people in the world, created by the Globalists...so they are trying to figure out a way to control their monster.
            
            Then, there are the SJW types and male and female feminists...I pray that there is hope for them. 
            
            The mindless low attention span lost souls have my empathy for too. 
            
            Good to see you!

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2. 85

   Marisa Wrightposted 8 years ago

   It was definitely Facebook that killed the forums.  I've been a member of a few forums where we watched members become friends on Facebook and then stop coming to the forums.  Then we observed that new members weren't joining - instead they were joining Facebook fan pages on the same subject.
   
   It's sad because Facebook is no substitute for a forum. Try keeping up with a long discussion on Facebook - impossible.  Try searching back through the posts for an answer to a question you've got - even if you know it's one that's probably been asked umpteen times, good luck finding it.
   
   The loss of forums isnt' just the death of little communities, it's the loss of an incredible wealth of information in some cases.

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      ryanpugsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I heard that Metafilter was struggling financially, and that's an internet institution, sad to see these once great sites dying.
      
      A combination of Google and Facebook to blame for that I guess, possibly Reddit although the userbase is very different with Reddit being for Millennials so probably not so much Reddit.
      
      I do like Reddit though, I read it a lot rather than contribute, and it can sometimes be pretty useful. Their AMA's (Ask Me Anything) are great, I don't understand why I didn't get into Reddit much earlier than I did.
      
      Quora looked promising when it was mainly populated by the intelligent and ambitious, but hasn't scaled very well and a lot of tripe and self promotion on that site now unfortunately!

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         Jean Bakulaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         There are still forums out there if you are interested in specific subjects. But our interests change.
         I never had a FB account, I thought it was a way I often saw people hurt each other. Nobody answers email anymore, unless it's about something technical. The form of communication I get most is texts, nobody even converses anymore.

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3. 93

   Susan Hambidgeposted 8 years ago

   I don't think it is dying, I think it is evolving. It was new and fun to communicate with people across the world in an instant, and with people who share your thoughts or apposed them in forums. But we have got used to it. It was fun to catch up with people we hadn't seen since school unsocial media, but we got used to it. Twitter made me chuckle, love people's lightening fast wit, but I've got used to that too. I'm just waiting for the next 'thing' right now. Meanwhile, looking up 'how to do things' myself, comparing reviews before I purchase something, looking for recommendations for a night out, I am not tired of those things yet, and can't imagine my life without them.
   
   Of course, constant advertising is getting incredibly boring and is like white noise to me now. That might be dying!

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4. 86

   Stacie Lposted 8 years ago

   There are few real forums online anymore. The major social sites have taken over and I do find them boring as well.

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   psycheskinnerposted 8 years ago

   There are new forums starting all the time. You just have to be willing to move from those that are declining to those that are thriving.  And if this is a Facebook group rather than a traditional forum, so be it.

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   1. 61

      ryanpugsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      A facebook group is significantly different to a forum though.
      
      Unless a facebook group is 'closed' or 'private' all of your friends and relatives can see what you have written, and people are much more reserved when sharing opinions or details about their private when waiving their right to anonymity.
      
      I am a member of a couple of thriving forums (in the traditional sense), but they seem to have had to swallow up all of their one time competitors in order to retain their status, definitely a dying medium.
      
      I guess that smartphones are part of the problem for forums also, many are built on old clunky software which isn't user friendly, whilst of course facebook is very mobile friendly....

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      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      But that's not the point, psycheskinner.  A Facebook group or page is far from equivalent to a proper forum.
      
      On a proper forum, you can ask questions of the community and get an answer.  BUT if it's an evergreen subject, you can also delve back into the archives of other questions and get a wealth of other answers.  That's the dimension that's missing on Facebook.
      
      There used to be a belly dance forum called Bhuz, which was a perfect example of that type of forum.
      Want a translation of an obscure Egyptian song?  Want to know where to buy a shamadan?  Perhaps the members on the forum today can't help - but no worries, search the archives and it's bound to be there. 
      
      Another aspect is keeping track of ongoing discussions.  One of my friends used to be on a crafts forum.  It died and has been replaced by a Facebook group but it's not the same - she has no way of keeping track of all the various conversations, it's all too confusing and she's now given up.

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   Venkatachari Mposted 8 years ago

   I think people have become too busy to spend time on forums and discussions nowadays. Their work atmosphere and other obligations might be the cause.

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   Millionaire Tipsposted 8 years ago

   I too thought blogging was dead.  It looked like most of the bloggers I followed had stopped writing new posts.  I discovered, though, that there were lots of new bloggers who had started writing. I had to take the trouble to find them. But overall, I still have more bloggers to red than I have time to read.
   
   The internet does seem to be boring, because the algorithms want to only have you see things you want to see.  So over time, Facebook and Google only have you see things that agrees with your opinion.  You rarely see a dissenting opinion.  This is scary because you don't really know what the world thinks, but it also makes it more boring.

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8. 92

   EricDockettposted 8 years ago

   If the internet seems more boring it may be because it has changed from a unique thing we access in our spare time to an essential thing that millions of people and businesses rely on for their daily operations. There is far less anonymity, and people seem to accepted that there is little or no divide between their online word and the real word. Increasingly, they are the same thing. Communication, social interaction, shopping, banking, research, entertainment, news -- many people now rely on the internet for all that and more.
   
   Personally, I find that weird and a little alarming. I don't think I can ever make that mental switch, but so goes progress. I used to participate in many forums years ago, but I can't get into Facebook or other social media.
   
   Actually, I kind of miss the days before the internet. I remember how my college room mate in the early '90s would go to the computer lab every night with the campus computer nerds and mess around with the "world wide web". He explained it to me and I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard of. I felt like I had so many better things to do. I never could have guessed what it would become.
   
   Technology marches on. I expect the internet will continue to evolve until it eventually achieves self-awareness and decides it doesn't need us anymore.

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   1. 61

      ryanpugsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      That's an interesting perspective. People now HAVE to log on to perform mundane everyday task.
      
      Like internet banking, I have to do my accounting and tax returns in the cloud, etc.
      
      So often it is a chore, whereas once it was a place to escape the daily grind, now it is part of the daily grind.

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9. 61

   The Examiner-1posted 8 years ago

   I get bored on Facebook and I may cancel. I am interested and active on here and blogs. I agree that people do not use email as much as they used to. Twitter, Pinterest and several blogs are still active with others. I still have followers and I still follow others also. We write back and forth quite a bit.

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