To ask whether you prefer live with or without internet and why

[Lovingthesunshine88]

so i live in a small village and my nearest towns are dying barely no shops (i still use what's left)

Internet for me is great for just googling a number or address or booking things without hassle searching recipes and obviously mumsnet

Downfall trolls, online shopping (although you can get unique stuff not on high street) kids being obsessed with YouTube + online gaming, gambling, dating sites (although i have friends who've met the one also have friends who've not had great experiences)

I have my pro's and con's just wondered how all of you feel.

I am not anti internet but kind of prefer live before internet, just my opinion though

PS i don't do social media because of animal cruelty videos 😔 removed myself off everything. Only had FB for 1 week about 8 years ago.

I think life was a lot “simpler” before the internet and, in some ways, better. But I couldn’t live without it now. I do think dating is harder since the internet, online dating is grim. I also think people cheat more now. They get more opportunities and easier ways to hide it. My DC are nearly 30 and they are probably the last generation to remember life pre internet. They do tell me they’re glad they mostly grew up without it, even though they wouldn’t want to be without it now. It has its good side and it’s dark side.

Just to say we also have a what's going on in *** fb group which i don't see but is in everyday conversation . So this weekend one young girl about 11 walked off with traffic cone on her head doing nothing malicious or awful but on the local fb group someone uploaded a video of her and people were commemorating her parents should be ashamed a live on/in boater on canal said he'd teach her a lesson and throw her in the canal she needs "respect" like i say small village not alot to do and i find a grown man saying this disturbing it's 1 traffic cone out of about 230 and she had it on her head, it was also put back to where she got it from.

I have no DC of my own but i have 2 teenage DSS thankfully they've not appeared on this vile FB site as of yet.

@Asta19 i agree there's some things I love some things i hate. I am so glad it wasn't around whilst I was growing up though

The internet has loads more positives than negatives.

More lives are saved every hour thanks to being able to look up life saving information, whether that be diagnosis, drug availability, dispatching ambulances, fire, police, etc.

The high street has been in decline since the Victorian times, and more recently, with the construction of out of town shopping centres furthering the decline even faster. All pre-internet.

Also disagree about internet dating. Which is safer, chatting to someone on the 'net, where you have the tools to find out as much info as you can before meeting, or bumping into some random in the pub, where with the consumption of alcohol, misjudgments could be made?

I experienced outages every day for 5 days, 8 hours at a time a few weeks ago.

I felt like phoning EE and enquiring as to why they don't just come round and chop my arms off. I came to my senses quickly as I am not a complete loon but the thought was briefly there.

I remember a time before internet fondly though because I am fully heading in the old bag direction but, as you can probably surmise from the above, wouldn't want to be without it now.

The amount of stuff I have to get online because local shops don't sell it at all is a lot. Some of this is some very common medical supplies and basic household goods. I'm in the middle of an urban area too, with an absolutely mind boggling number of shops but they all sell the same lowest common denominator crap as each other. I'd prefer to support local shops but if they don't have what I need, I can't exactly do it. For instance, I needed a deep bread tin. Nothing locally but bog standard shallow poor quality shite and very few to choose from. Had to go to Lakeland's site to get them. That's a chicken and egg situation but, even knowing that, I can't buy what local shops don't sell.

Like yourself though, I do notice the bad that the internet is also responsible for. There is some horrendously ugly human behaviour encouraged by so much connectivity or just displayed more widely because of it. Your for instance of a grown man threatening to throw a small child in the cut is prime example. He's a fucking prick trying to curry favour with strangers by going totally overboard.

With. I met my husband and three of my best friends online. I can do internet shopping as some days I can't leave the house when my joints are bad. It has its problems but it opened the world for me growing up in a lonely abusive household

Definitely world was better without internet. Yes it’s handy for shopping/business, but it enables criminal minorities like paedophiles and terrorists to cooperate much more easily. You wouldn’t have Russia throwing an American election or teenagers in Birmingham running off to join Isis in Syria without the internet. Cybercrime. Cyberwarfare! Old people getting defrauded of life savings by a “Nigerian princess”. Young children downloading violent porn videos, psychos learning how to build bombs from youtube, etc etc. The internet was a bad idea.

I think the shopping thing is interesting. I have travelled and spent time in quite a lot of places and I don’t feel the “high street” is dying anywhere else, as much as it is in England and I don’t know exactly why that is. The places where it still seems to be thriving do offer a good variety of things whereas my local high street for example is all pound shops, charity shops, Iceland etc. I never go to my high street as it’s just plain boring!

Many jobs go thanks to internet. Shopping - Amazon stores have robots, banks, and could it have contributed to Thos Cook's fail, we're all booking air bnb online. Even teaching is moving to more online courses. And restaurants are being sidelined by delivery services online. Online health advice , Skype for counselling and job interviews. Where is everyone to find work?

omg, getting anything done, finding any info, was so much more effort pre-internet. I love T'Internet.

I'm clearly in the old camp too, and while I'm glad I grew up without the internet, there are so many resources available that you just can't get elsewhere. I think its very different comparing no internet in a large city to no internet in the middle of nowhere. While there may be issues, responsible use of the internet is a marvellous thing.

"PS i don't do social media because of animal cruelty videos 😔 removed myself off everything. Only had FB for 1 week about 8 years ago."

Er, what do you think MN is?

I couldn't live without Internet now! My job is all online, my hobbies and lots of my friends I met and talk to online as I love online gaming. I prefer online shopping, the wide range of entertainment that can be accessed on YouTube, Netflix etc. I love doing courses online via coursea, edx etc. I really like sm like Instagram, I follow people who are into some of my obscure hobbies. If you can think it, there will be a discord, reddit, hashtag or similar online community for that obscure band/TV show/movie/hobby/sport that pre Internet you would of never of been able to find anyone to talk about it with.

@VeniVidiWeeWee never seen an animal cruelty video on here

OP - you could always do a course which teaches you to use punctuation.

That would be useful.

I wouldn’t be without it. All that information, entertainment and opportunity at your fingertips. Plus social media is a great tool for staying connected with family and friends abroad in a much more vibrant way than was ever possible before. Not to mention the way it supports the way we work now.

I would no way be without it.

I think it's made life much more pleasant, especially as an introvert and having health issues. Home working is a huge boost too.

mum is 81 and she's been really upset when her online access has gone down.

Bloody hell, I could never live without internet. It's my source of entertainment and most social interaction.

@Lovingthesunshine88

Probably not, but MN is still social media.

I’ve thought about this too and whilst SM seems to bring out a lot of the bad human traits and gaming is addictive overall the internet is a positive.

@TheMustressMhor always one....yawn!!

I think on the whole, the internet is massively a positive thing. Of course, it has down-sides, some extremely worrying - as a parent of two teenage boys, despite putting all parental controls on wifi and mobile networks, I worry about the effect the more extreme forms of online pornography might have on them. I've had open and honest discussions with them about this.

I'm in my 50's so more than old enough to remember pre-internet life. Shopping for instance - you went to the local town and bought the best of what was available - hugely reduced choice, no online reviews to assist you, paying to cover retailers rent and staff cost overheads etc. Now, choice and information is limitless. Yes, town centres will have to change as 'bricks and mortar' retail is under pressure, but everything changes sooner or later.

If I want a holiday, I can book my own AirBnB, my own car rental and flights from my sofa, and get the best prices. I can even have a look round the place before I book on Google maps, see what the menu looks like in all the restaurants, check out the attractions etc...

Then there's information for study - my kids are doing A levels and GCSE's and the wealth of free information astounds me. They can find literally anything they need in a few minutes - and learn valuable lessons about the accuracy and completeness of various sources, which helps them to critically evaluate information.

Entertainment has been transformed - YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime , music, video, TV... When I was a kid we had 3 TV stations and no video recorders...

So yes, the internet is, on balance, an enormous positive.

With. I love wikipedia, pinterest and online international shopping.

However, I think I would prefer a world without smartphones. I feel that it's intrusive. People expect too much the second they contact you (general you). I don't want the pressure of explaining that I don't text or call back the same day if I don't want to. Somehow people feel rejected. In the olden days they'd just phone again later.

The internet has made accessing information easier, but I'm not so sold on social media. I quit Facebook about a year ago and it's been by far the best thing I ever did for my mental health. I dread to think what it's doing to the kids growing up on it.

The internet itself is a brilliant invention, and has definitely made modern life easier in many ways. And it helps that some of the things that make it potentially harmful are negotiable or optional - you don't have to have a social media account, you can child-proof your internet at home, etc.