Would you go back to a time before technology?

[sorrythatwasme]

If you could push a button would you erase the internet forever?

I love the internet, but I actually would. I think many problems stem from being so connected.

How would we have coped during the pandemic if we didn't have the internet? WFH wouldn't have been an option. The sequence for the virus couldn't have been shared round the world so quickly allowing different groups to start working on a vaccine.

I'm 61 and remember the time pre tech, give me tech any day. Its much easier for me to keep in touch with friends and family online, I do all my shopping online, banking and paying bills.
At work everything is online, no more writing lengthy notes in cardexes, all the information I need is at the touch of a button.
It has it's negatives but I wouldn't change a thing.

No I hate the idea. Online banking is so much easier. Buying stuff is so much easier. Paying bills is so much easier. Travel is so much easier. Finding information and reading reviews is so helpful. I wouldn't want to live without it. I did not find life better without it.

Technology or the internet?

I might be dead if we couldn't have medical advances

I would 100% prefer to be without it. I love the element of surprise, if life. I rarely have a plan! I never Google anything in advance. I really miss the times of leaving the house, and actually having the day to myself. No texts, WhatsApps, social media…

We managed in the old days.

Just leave your phone at home. Just because you have a phone doesn't mean you have to take it everywhere or even switch it on.

Only if I could erase my knowledge of the internet.

If you don’t believe the internet is a good thing then surely you’re free to have a mobile without a data package and not have home broadband / only turn the router on between 9 - 5 if you WFH. I don’t understand why people who say their lives would be better without Internet rarely seem to make that choice for themselves.

On the whole yes. I think the human race is marching, like lambs to the slaughter, to obsolescence.

It seems like regulate how social media works and big tech giants having power is contradictory.

I say that because big tech giants have massive influence in government. So they would be the ones determining what the regulations were, thus giving them more power.

It's pretty simple.

Because wanting something in principle does not mean you are able to practically get it.

I would go back to a time before the internet existed. That doesn't mean I'm going to not use it now that we are in a time where it does, that would just make my life harder unnecessarily.

I often leave my phone at home, when I don’t need it for work. Ditched my smartphone a couple of times, over the last ten years, in favour of a Nokia.

I don’t think the Internet is not a good thing, at all. It’s great. And enables me to work freelance. Just if I had a choice, I very much liked life before tech.

I agree that's a good point. I enjoy the internet and if I lost mine it would be awful.

But dial me back to that simpler time and leave me there with no internet ever?

Yes please.

I definitely would. I'd have to find a different job though as there would be no call for web designers. Damn.
The internet has been around for my whole adult life, in an alternate universe I'd love to be able to try living without it to see how different that would be.

@Gowlett I'd love to do this but I wouldn't. I have the ability to be contacted immediately should my child get hurt when not with me.

If that option did not exist that's one thing. But it does, so getting home five hours later when I could have been by her side (for example) would just be ridiculous and leaving the phone at home would just mean worrying the whole time.

I don't like what the internet has done to us basically. But it's done now!

No. I like the internet. It is far easier now to find things that interest you, look up information you've forgotten, learn new things, find places you want to visit. I'd never go back.

Technology : No. I’m ancient enough to remember the world before the internet and I wouldn’t want to go back to not having information, communications, resources & news available at your fingertips 24/7. It’s just too convenient.

Social media : Yes. It does far more harm than good, particularly to the young, the impressionable & the vulnerable. Growing up in a social media obsessed world must be a complete nightmare, particularly for girls.

I do remember pre-internet times, and it was fine. We read maps, used libraries and met people in person more than anyone needs to do now. I loved the idea of democratising information so that knowledge became free. My issues now are: there's so much that isn't true on the net and that we are too reliant on it. I truly think areas of our brains will shrink if we no longer need to stretch them, as a click gives you the answer to everything (apparently). It's made life more sedentary and passive. On balance I would happily do without it as I did for the first 35 years or so of my life!

When I was a child my parents and my friends parents all had a set of encyclopaedia's similar to this.

From a very young age we went to the local
Library by ourselves or with friends.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/283859488024?hash=item4217580d18:g:LDcAAOSwUElepJjT&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0FWc20hWMLjMgeyoGyacE4i75rpgfeO7OPfZyAFuDYGU69JFPUeU6ZawG%2FlO3WtkTVgEg5EFGExvi%2B0%2BraGYWlWaXCc61MBuYzDa3XD5cAmQHuiUBlvsPsEBufBPXA5ugkMWc9FcY9DmITSN0DZHhBfDVp0b8BTvx0FS%2BmLYV19PMOdkUAJ65NDV8D4jDxsVR7gqtOt8NZGKyuIKrhWYPxPv23j4NDldJmcrweS484nyC%2BKfqgIZm%2Frd7oGZBu9khCN%2BGvXJYmHvkOuT2RrfrcU%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR77C_eS4Yg

@MerylSqueak I remember going to my local library, and using the indexes in books to find things that interested me. I'd read bits from different books. I also had loads of different books on the shelves at home and just read whichever ones looked interesting.

We had encyclopaedias and I would look things up there.

I know I only lived in that world until age 13, when the net became widely available, but I miss it and I think it built my cognitive skills to find information like that.

Don't get me wrong, I embrace technology, we have Alexas in the house, but I don't prefer it, and it worries me that we will lose abilities if we can just go 'Alexa what's the capital of Congo?' instead of having to go through stages to get to that answer that included forming neural pathways.

I also don't really begrudge it. I think it's inevitable and natural that we are moving in this direction, but it's undoubtedly changed the world and I just miss the simplicity of the old world.

No. I like being able to find cheap/free activities for the dc at the click of a button and to send photos to my mum. I also like to be able to use BBC iPlayer at the hospital when my son is asleep or in theatre for hours.

No! I love it. Though I do agree that social media can be terrible. Yes, I know I'm on mumsnet which has its dark side too.

No. There are entire groups of people for whom the internet (despite its ills) has provided with a lifeline. Similar to when people get nostalgic for ye good ole days.

???