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Original poster

If you could flip this switch would you?

150 replies

CloudsInMyFrap · 02/05/2022 22:52

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.

OP posts:
nocoolnamesleft · 02/05/2022 23:21

No way. The internet is how I keep up with so many of my actual friends, who are scattered all over the place.

Pumpkin314 · 02/05/2022 23:22

In a heartbeat, the bad outweighs the good. Bo Burnham's 'welcome the the internet' song encapsulates all that's wrong with it very well, ironically obviously watched while streaming via the internet. I'm as addicted to my phone as anyone, but it's incredibly difficult to avoid when everything (bills, school stuff, life admin) is all online.

ApplesAndChalk · 02/05/2022 23:23

Hmm, I'm torn.
On one hand, I think I liked life more in the 90s. I was a young teenager, mind you! Loads more interactions with people in day to day life.

On the other, I think the internet and technology related to it has done a lot of good- information at the tips of our fingers, advances in health care etc etc.

Unfortunately, any idiot can also access it and post whatever they like!

balkangrill · 02/05/2022 23:29

Really not sure about internet, but I would get rid of smartphones. Mobile phones are great invention, but this ability to be constantly on turned into demand and need to be constantly on and I find it exhausting.
So if I could, I would go back to time with internet on our computers, but not on our phones.
And yes, I'm typing this on my phone, oh the irony...

OstrichFeathers · 02/05/2022 23:35

I was recently thinking about a summer job I had a uni in a major at the time bank. One of my jobs was typing up cheques for millions of euros and bringing them to various head honchos for signatures. All that is done online now. I love that my kids can play with their friends online, but God it can be hard to drag them off again. I love the ease of finding anything I want in an instant, but my memory is shot because I don't need it any more. Social media needs to be fired into the sun no matter what. Could we ration it? (Since none if us seem to get able to manage it ourselves)

Justkeeppedaling · 02/05/2022 23:37

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.

Email is not the Internet. We had email for a long time before the WWW was invented.

L1ttledrummergirl · 02/05/2022 23:39

In a heartbeat.
I'd miss this place though.

KatherineJaneway · 02/05/2022 23:40

Heck no!

Booboobibles · 02/05/2022 23:40

I would like to go back to it now but I wouldn’t like to not have all the knowledge I have gained from the internet. I probably wouldn’t even know that I’m autistic. I feel that the internet has hugely accelerated my brain development.

That said, I don’t like being addicted to Mumsnet although even that has desensitised me so that I no longer feel upset/angry at all the judgey people in the world.

CrunchyCarrot · 02/05/2022 23:41

I have experienced no Internet etc in my young days, but no I wouldn't get rid of it now, if I did I'd live a very socially isolated life and would never have discovered the joys of online roleplaying. It's also been extremely useful in terms of my health communities.

AmeliaEarhart · 02/05/2022 23:42

Yes, I would.

My ideal would be some kind of compromise as suggested by @balkangrill, with some internet access but no smartphones. Maybe rewind things back to the early 2000s, so there’d be email and search engines etc, but brick phones and hardly any social media. Of course I, too, am typing this on my iPhone, sitting up in bed when I have to be up at 6.30 tomorrow and have already spent most of the evening arguing with strangers on MN 😬

NeverDropYourMooncup · 02/05/2022 23:42

Yes. Because there is never any true escape from technology now. You can't get on a bus without it, can't work without using it, can't use banking facilities without it as they've closed the branches, and people can and do expect to get hold of you 24/7 without ever feeling you're truly alone.

All it would take is one EMP and everything stops.

OppsUpsSide · 02/05/2022 23:43

No, it’s a new tool, learn to use it properly.

Stopsnowing · 02/05/2022 23:44

Yes. And to the pp who said lockdown would have been harder without the internet I suspect the internet made lockdown possible. Without it, society would have been forced to open up a lot quicker.

Neverreturntoathread · 02/05/2022 23:44

Yep. People are expected to be available to employers round the clock now for no extra pay, plus the internet took terrorist and paedophile networks to a new level. Enabling people to connect isn’t always a good thing. Oh yeah and most 11 year olds have seen hardcore porn and that shapes their developing sexual desires 🤢

And everyone’s addicted to it. I have no idea why I’m reading this at 23.43 instead of a good book or sleeping.

Stopsnowing · 02/05/2022 23:44

And I hate how everyone assumes I am looking at my phone for messages all the time.

NewbieDivergent · 02/05/2022 23:44

Definitely.

newfriend05 · 02/05/2022 23:45

No, only because could you have imagined how much harder lockdown would have been without it ? No
FaceTime, no internet shopping , no WhatsApp the list goes on .. it would have been so much worse

Binglebong · 02/05/2022 23:51

No. We have access no so much information now- anyone can learn pretty much any hobby. You can learn how to fix things. Yes there are bad but also incredibly good things.

darlingdodo · 02/05/2022 23:56

Yes. I think life is so much more complicated because of the internet.

VivienneDelacroix · 03/05/2022 00:00

Yes, I think I would.
I think it I'd reshaping the way our brains develop far too quickly and that it will end up having an extremely detrimental effect on our mental health and wellbeing as a species.

MysteriousMonkey · 03/05/2022 00:07

Yes, on balance I would and I love my Internet based job 😂

PastMyBestBeforeDate · 03/05/2022 00:08

Not a chance.
I'm disabled and the Internet not only means I can earn a decent living but I can organise my life far more easily than I could without the Internet.
I suspect you really mean the web rather than the Internet.

Katya213 · 03/05/2022 00:15

Here I am on mumsnet but yes, I’d absolutely flick that switch. Life was more simple, less complicated. I even remember dating without the invention of mobile phones, you kind of had something to look forward to at the weekend or one night during the week when you met up for a date. That’s my thoughts anyway lol.

Fearitcatches · 03/05/2022 00:17

Once I wouldn’t have considered it but now I think yes. Over all we would be better off without the internet.