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[Rilder]

Except for the occasional foray onto an instant messenger I don't do anything like that.

I don't even have a cell-phone.

[Yanlin]

I don't use social networking sites. If I wanted to find idiots to call friends, I'd walk outside.

[dreiche2]

Gosh, you guys sound like a bunch of old men ranting about the youth of today 

I think the internet is a very good thing for humanity

- because it allows for information to be accessible much easier
- because it helps tearing down barriers in between different countries and cultures
- because it makes cooperation possible in ways that wasn't possible before (Linux, wikipedia, anyone?)

I also don't get the argument from earlier in this thread about evolution being "faster" on islands, hu? It just makes it being more niche-y, e.g. with birds losing their ability to fly... not exactly a useful thing...

Also, the internet killing creativity? I think the opposite is true, because now it's much easier for any niche artist to find people who are interested in his or her work etc., for any interest group to find like minded people, etc. Twenty years ago everything had to be funneled through the mainstream media bottleneck first.

I mean, you think Dwarf Fortress would be what it is today without the internet? Heck, I know it from my own experience: More than ten years ago I was coding my own little game, but I didn't know much about the internet, so I didn't know what to do with it in the end. Nowadays, I can code up a little utility script for a mod for civilization 4 and have a thousand people download it...

Finally, I also don't see what's so bad about social networking sites. I was always bad at keeping in touch with friends and my family, and now I'm living in a different country, and things like Facebook helps me staying in contact, updating them on my situation etc. Not the greatest thing in the world, but not the end of the world, either.

Obviously everything comes with drawbacks, and there are a lot of interesting social implications. But I don't share that negative attitude...

[Yanlin]

Oh don't get me wrong. The internet is AWESUM. But social networking sites? It's like 4chan lite minus the pictures.

[Aqizzar]

And any kind of gaming voicechat is 4chan without pictures or the slight impediment of making people type.  I'd say I'm waiting for the twitter-ization of phones, where everyone can just call one giant (ironically old-fashioned) party line, but text-messaging already overtook phone calls anyway so it probably won't work in reverse.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Oh don't get me wrong. The internet is AWESUM. But social networking sites? It's like 4chan lite minus the pictures.

BUT THE PICTURES! THE PICTURES!
They are what made imageboards awesum!

@Aqizzar: Sadly, the latter part of your statements are true. Txt language has nearly replaced sensible-typing language, at least in these part of the world (mine)

[pokute]

These discussions always seem to end up being about content. 

Too bad content has little bearing on the real problem. 

[sonerohi]

Twitter: useful device, retards overtook it.

Social networking: useful device, retards overtook it.

[pokute]

Twitter: useful device, retards overtook it.

Social networking: useful device, retards overtook it.

Getting warmer... could there be something about faster, more pervasive communication technologies that works well with "retards?"

[sonerohi]

Well, it may be a neat tool for people to use, but the easier and more convenient something is, the larger number of idiots that will figure out how to use it. It then gets overrun by 'lolz' and shittily made 'emoticons'. Therefore, to preserve intellectual blogging, we must make a version of myspace that requires an indepth knowledge of Homer and the fall of Rome. It will weed out at least 90% of idiots, because they will most likely think 'Homer? Iliad? Chh, Homer says D'oh and runs after donuts. Hurrrr, Simpsons".

[pokute]

Now to think about the impact of faster communication... this one seems a bit counter intuitive because of the decades of marketing surrounding technology.

Let me inject something else into the discussion here... the paradox of technology versus time.

Advertisers like to sell technology using the story that because technology will save us time, it will give us better lives by allowing us time to do other things.

While technology does indeed make tasks shorter and occasionally easier, this fantasy fails to take into account the human nature of competition.  (Competition is really inherent on a different scale, but that's beyond the scope of this thread.) 

Because tasks are now shorter, competition necessarily raises the bar so we perform more tasks to use up the time savings. 

The net effect is that of more frequent tasks, not more time.

Now what might be the impact of having to perform shorter, but far more frequent tasks on the cognitive process? 
(Keeping the average person in mind)

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Humanity essentially ended when reality television was invented.
This state of decline went into freefall when 12-year-olds discovered AOL.

[Asheron]

Humanity essentially ended when reality television was invented.
This state of decline went into freefall when 12-year-olds discovered AOL.

The decline halted a very small bit when DF was invented though.
However, with closing of VN, the freefall has been quicker than ever, as the internet is now subject to even more... things...

[Rilder]

internet is now subject to even more... things...

Like global warming!

[sonerohi]

And /b/ spilling out of 4chan and shitting all over the rest of the internet.