If you could flip this switch would you?

[CloudsInMyFrap]

If you could flip a switch and everything in the world was the same except the internet didn’t exist, would you?

Don’t bother saying “my job wouldn’t exist then so blablabla” - you’d obviously have a different job.

So. No email. No smartphones, just mobile phones. No google, no Wikipedia, everything done by telephone and post and catalogue.

I think I would! Can’t even justify it, but I feel I would welcome a simpler way of living.

It's an interesting question but on the whole I think the internet adds more to life than takes away so no I wouldn't get rid of it.

I'm with you OP and I suspect we are a similar age

100%yes,

Yes I would

Yes!!!!!! The internet brought trolls out of the woodwork and turned some formerly nice people in society into nasty keyboard warriors. This has turned society into a highly critical, judgmental & at times awful, place to be. I would be the first in-line to go back to pre-internet times, despite losing the conveniences of the internet

No. I lived that way pre-internet. This is better.

I think it’s been good for personal entertainment, but detrimental in a societal/community level.

Yes I would flip the switch.

No way.

Nope. I was an adult before the internet was a thing (before mobile phones were a thing, come to that). While there are some downsides overall I think the internet has massively improved life for many people.

Yep. I'd flip the shit out of it

Yes I would, but then lockdown would’ve been even more lonely.

No I wouldn't.

Yes I would. I wish DD could grow up in a time before internet like I did, life was simpler and children weren't in a hurry to grow up, glued to tablets and smartphones.

I wouldn't flip a switch to get rid of "the internet" but I would flip a switch to get rid of social media ... even though that would mean no more MN, and I love MN. Social media is doing so much damage.

Without thinking.

There's always been messed up, evil, perverted people in the world, but the internet has given them easy access to fuel their interests to the point of obsessions.

How many kids have killed themselves, harmed themselves because some chucklefuck on the internet pushed then too it?
How many kids have decimated their bodies, convinced by online affirmations that their body is wrong somehow?
How many fetishists have become so obsessed with their objects of desire that they've taken action, shared videos and photos. Even gone on to abuse kids..?

Hell, even down to the internet enabling and encouraging cheating within relationships.

So on and so on..

It's impossible to know, it would run into many many many thousands of lives ruined I would expect.

I think I'd prefer to be without it too.
It makes life easier in many ways, but the bad outweighs the good

100% no. It would not make the world better and “more simple”

and for autistic people like me it would remove a hugely important way of communicating and feeling less alone.

In a heartbeat.

Yes because it has partially caused or maybe accelerated the moral decline of society.

I'm quite unusual for someone in their 30s in that I don't use social media and never have but even so what other people do has had ramifications on me and my life.

I'd live in a perpetual 90s with my Nokia 3310. Calls, texts and Snake of course.

I would, but only if the switch erased my knowledge that there had ever been such a thing. I'm far too dependent on the Internet to manage without it, I wish I didn't need it.

PS Mumsnet is not social media- it's a forum.

No. I think about it a lot and I remember life before, but I was young and the opportunities and information I can get from the internet existing are just too much to justify it not being there.

As for work, well actually my work wouldn't exist and having another job would make me very, very unhappy.

I connect with people via internet, I actually am able to have a relationship with my mum because of it where I otherwise wouldn't be able to.

I can find out literally anything and it's given me the best life being able to do that.

So no, even though I do miss back in the day and what life was like, I'm in such a different place it wouldn't benefit me in the same way. I'm glad I have memories of pre-internet.

No. Benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. Imagine hospitals having to physically post X-ray and other images, consultation notes, lab reports to specialists rather than email and discuss straight away.

Knowledge exchange limited to an elite few.

The internet hasn't made good people nasty. Hitler, Oswald Moseley etc all existed in a pre-internet world.

I'd keep,the internet but get rid of the social media aspect of it. so could still have online shopping/google but not the cesspit that is Twitter for example.