To feel like I wouldn’t be that bothered if the internet disappeared?

If that really is how you feel @Taq … you should be starting a thread about the acute loneliness you are clearly suffering

Maybe a slightly abridged version - such as the only place you can get onto the internet is at work and they have controls so no SM/porn/news sites accessible, just intranet and use of some specific AI search engines such as legal that are useful for the job only. Police and NHS would have it purely to link the databases between buildings across the country and the medical AI used to find patterns in disease from scans, for example.

If you took it out of homes and pupils had to use it at school, for example, a lot of people would suddenly have a lot of time back and start using their brain again. Those entry level jobs would creep back too.

I love the internet and rely on it for my business so yes, I would definitely miss it.

This thread is really reminding me of the other one about phones being banned in schools. Some people on there just could not accept that teenagers have lots of legitimate uses for phones, without which their lives would be far less safe, less convenient and less enjoyable.

Because of the teens who haven't been brought up wisely and disciplined sufficiently to stop them from abusing them and using them inappropriately/potentially harmfully, posters were insistent that they don't need them and that they can bring no benefit at all - even if it means the difference being able to call 999/for help when lying there bleeding following a serious accident on their way home or not being able to get in touch with anybody.

The amount of tying themselves in knots that some Luddites and tech-refuseniks will do to insist that tech is not useful/necessary and find very contrived and contrived 'alternative' ways to stumble your way awkwardly through multiple situations when the perfect solution already exists and is readily available, but is being randomly denied and refused.

The best part of all is that they usually use the internet to help them to spread their personal Mrs Doyle-like "but maybe I like the misery" convictions far and wide!!

I would really fucking struggle.

@Dabipper

Anyone that thinks cash should be dispensed with in favour of everything monetary being online deserves everything they get.

Unless you're planning to keep huge amounts of cash under your mattress, you won't get far. Fair enough for small amounts to buy a pint of milk, but you're not going to pay your mortgage/rent in cash (and even if you have cash, how are you going to pay it if the banks are "down"), and without the internet or with a banking collapse, you're not going to be able to withdraw cash from anywhere either. It's why the entire Western economy bailed out the banks in 2008 - the effects of even one major bank collapsing would be catastrophic. Have a bit of cash by all means to buy a pint of milk (if you can find a shop that's open and has some), but it really isn't a solution for more than a few days.

Hell no. It is too ingrained into our lives now. I think mental health would suffer.

Yep, being on a phone does not mean someone is doom scrolling. They could be chatting, or even reading a book on their phone.

Tail end of Boomer here ( born 1962) so can obviously remember pre -internet, but would definitely NOT want to revert.

I don't really use much social media - I mean, I surf Mumsnet and I occasionally look at Facebook but I don't do Instagram or TikTok or any of that malarkey.

But there's the convenience of on-line banking, shopping, booking things, parking apps.

Then information at your fingertips, anything you want to know. Just at random how to fix an issue with my sewing machine; replacing the recessed LED lights in the kitchen; what else that actor I saw in last night's drama had been in; the rest of the lyrics to an obscure half-remembeted song.

And, OMG, Google maps. On holiday at the moment. I have always been chief navigator and way back that just involved paper maps and, on one memorable occasion in rural France when we got sent way off course with a Route Barree and an inadequate map, a compass. But these days it is generally so less stressful when I can navigate DH round the one way system in an unfamiliar town with relative ease.

Admittedly much of our leisure time is spent as it was 40 years ago. Tonight for instance we have read our books, had a drink of wine and not even bothered to put the TV on. But, even though I could probably rediscover my pre-internet skills at most things, why would I want to?

Oh and WhatsApp. Would be devastated without that.

Same here. My life would be immeasurably worse without the internet.

Of course people talk.

If they don't, the phone is an excuse, not a reason.

As long as I could still get my shopping delivered (I am disabled) then I agree. I am sure this could be arranged over the phone.

Ultimately the internet has done more harm than good because humans, or at least a significant proportion of them, are disgusting and ruin everything they touch.

Who would have thought what started as a great new way to communicate and a fantastic library of information would become a vehicle for fraud, pornography and violence and a tool to spread division on a scale never known before?

When do I go to the bank? They're open when I’m at work and when I’m at kids activities on a Saturday morning.

Loads of branches are closing too. The few that are open, you could spend a good couple of hours going to and from them if you rely on buses.

Even if they reopened all the branches unless they change the hours it won’t work. It’s why the post office has been left behind, I can drop things anytime of the day at lockers, Evri drop offs etc rather than waste an entire lunch break queuing because there’s only 2 counters open.

I don't know about the whole internet going, but certainly social media and the smart phone addiction.

Where I live, you only have to look on Streetview 10-15 years back to see 4 banks in the village, now there are none. Same with the post office.

Getting through to the GP by calling them would be a nightmare, at the moment I just log in and fill in a form and they get back to you/make an appointment etc. So things like that I think things would be a lot harder to go back to.

Why not just stop using the internet yourself? Removing it entirely for everyone after several decades of reliance sounds like the logic that brought us Brexit.

The same way we did before. It would also be nice to do things spontaneously again instead of having to bloody book everything in advance.

Could do without social media its awful.
So many people have main character syndrome and feel the need to constantly post for validation.
Most of its just mundane rubbish and too many people are posting pics of their kids online .

I was surprised a few weeks ago to realise that the market town I live a couple of miles away from, which itself is a few miles outside a large city, so hardly in the middle of nowhere now has no banks at all left (there used to be several and like the old advert some have now become 'trendy wine bars'.

To make matters worse, there is only one cash point, at the supermarket, which had no cash because the card system at the supermarket had failed. This was a minor inconvenience to me because I could just drive to another supermarket on the way home but would have been a significant problem for anyone who had come on the bus as the town's other supermarket was some distance from the bus route.

Googling tells me there is a temporary banking hub in the community centre which has 5 banks there one day a week each on a rota and they are in the process of setting up a permanent unit on the high street.

We'd be completely fucked without the internet. Online banking for a start, card payments would all stop. We'd all have to go back to cash. But all the branches have shut down, post offices, and most of the cash points gone.

There would be no Netflix, Disney +, Iplayer or any other streaming/catch up service. All the mobile phone networks would cease to function, not even for voice calls or SMS.

Almost everything would grind to a halt, all the shipping and distribution services reliant on the internet. Supermarket shelves would be empty, and it'd take months to get things moving again.

Imagine all the stuff that's moved online having to go back to old fashioned paper and pen, it's almost unthinkable.

Every app, and smart device would stop working - from your ring doorbell, heating system to your car app.

If the internet disappeared tomorrow, we'd be completely fucked since we're absolutely dependent upon it for almost everything. It'd wouldn't be just like rewinding 30 years, we'd almost be back to the 1800's, and it'd take ages to come up with offline alternatives. Landlines are gone, fax machines gone, all that pre internet tech has been chucked in a skip.

Basically the internet is all out eggs in one basket, and whilst the whole point of it is that it was designed to be resilient, when AI goes rogue and decides it wants to wipe us out, the first thing it will do is take over every router on the internet and shut the whole network down in a way that's never been seen before. It won't be quaint, it won't be a bit inconvenient, it'll be eating spam by candle light for the next 3 years bad.

Practically, it would be a huge change that would create major disruption before it settled down to a slower stable state with lots of ongoing difficulties.

Switching it off is emotionally appealing though.

I was born in 1969 so grew up without the internet. Going back to that would be shit, the internet is fantastic for so many things. Just avoid the bits you don't like, or switch it off if you prefer, but you'll prise my modem from my cold dead hands.

I reckon the reason @Taq started this thread is because she’s feeling ignored or just downright lonely. She seems to think “everyone” is on their phone all the time and “no one” talks anymore.

I think what has galvanised the thread is that no one in @Taq ‘s life is talking to @Taq

My job would take me so long, I wouldn’t have time to visit a physical shop!!