AIBU to think unrestricted internet access is harming people and suining lives?

[balliolis]

Do you think that unfettered access to the internet and all the crap that goes with it is really messing people up? I was thinking of that woman from the UK who travelled to the US to be murdered by a man (at her request) she met on an extreme fetish website. She was apparently a hardcore Minecraft player in her early 30's who spend all her time online and somehow ended up in a very dark corner of the internet speaking to this older man who would one day murder her.

I also recall a TV doc where the reporter spoke to another young woman who was obsessed with extreme pornographic content of a similar nature who said it was access to porn and forums from a young age that prompted this fetish. Then all the young women who develop a strange idea of sex and what is required of them though porn and I actually think that access to porn from a young age traumatises women (and men too I suppose) in the much the same way that physical abuse does if to a much lesser extent. Reddit is full of forums of women looking for men to abuse them virtually of otherwise.

Then their are the young men who get every need met via online simulation and by contrast find real life rewards too demanding and overwhelming to pursue ending up dropping out of society to focus on a life of easy dopamine hits, often on benefits and mentally unwell and unfulfilled.

That is even before we get to the people with run of the mill porn addictions, social media addiction, gaming addiction and so on and the toll all of that takes on their mental health as so evidenced in the press and push for legislation.

I know that there are specific socioeconomic factors at play and I am sure there have always been shut ins and disturbed people and perverts but the internet must be leading many people down paths they never would have encountered otherwise?

It’s so worrying and it actually causes me huge anxiety when I sit and think about it.

I honestly wish the internet could disappear and we could go back in time.

I am fully aware of the irony of me posting this on an online forum.

So some people (a minority) cant deal with the Internet so you want to cancel it for everyone?

Did you know some people get killed by cars, so should we ban those too?
(In my mind as daft as the op)

I don’t think you’re unreasonable
at all. The internet has only been at everyone’s fingertips for around 15 years or so. I think
having access to so much information worldiwide is actually a massive problem.
your right with the things you mention are just some of the issues but there are plenty more.
it’s worrying for the whole human race to be honest. Yes the internet is great for a lot of things but heck it’s ruining a lot of civilisation.

I didn't say I wanted to cancel it at all.

I like the fact people can get medical information, and students can study online etc. Going back to just before social media was on phones might be ideal. So somewhere around 2005?

It’s like everything new. The same was said in the US when the average family could afford a car. Fear of daughters traipsing about the countryside having sex with perverts in the back of cars, accepting jobs in the city to fall prey to city perverts who want to murder them. Being exposed to people from other villages counties, countries and their corrupt views and habits.

The internet is simply the latest in a long line of technological advances where we have got over the shiny new toy stage and started to realise with every benefit there is a cost.

It’s tempting, but we can’t turn back time.

The overwhelming majority of people have 'unfettered access to the internet' and those people are, in the main, using sites such as mumsnet, reading the news and watching tiktok/Instagram shorts.

Progress is relentless whether good or bad. I do agree with you though. In the 90s it all felt innocent and exciting.

Now with the likes of Musk, Thiel, Ellison, Zuckerberg etc it's all increasingly dystopian.

It’s awful really - I think people (mainly men) are going to become more violent when ‘exciting’ stuff bombards you constantly.
The news alone, fires, earthquakes, reports of rapes, murders .
And the anonymity - just offer someone a few thousand on a disappearing message service to go and duff up your ex - who’s to know?

While I don't disagree, I think there is another side to it. A lot of people chasing that dopamine hit through gaming or social media addiction, would in previous generations, have found the same outlet through gambling addiction or drink, which would be more damaging.

Awful as it is to say, there always has been and always will deadbeats in any society, and they will alway find ways to alleviate the pain of that.

Agree. Why can’t the harmful shit be removed? My fear is what my SEN DS will look at when he’s old enough and whether he’ll get sucked into anything.

I do wonder if most people really know just how damaging it is and in how many ways. I suspect most people are pretty/totally ignorant about what’s happening.

The internet is ruining almost everything.

@Whatevergoes2025 I worry about that too. I work with young people and already see teenage boys and young men who are totally disengaged from reality and only care about the dopamine hits they get online. Who knows what kind of things they end up getting into but for all that to happen at such a critical developmental age is devastating, they end up so far removed from their peers its hard to see how they ever catch back up. So many go straight on to benefits because they literally cannot cope with the real world not only because they have additional needs or are Neurodiverse but also because they are so used to getting their needs met superficially through screens that taking real world action feels impossible to them, they convince themselves they are truly broken and unfit for the world and choose to almost revel in their vices and a sort of up yours to the world. I really wish there was more support and help to prevent young people, especially boys going down this pipeline as for most of them the difficulties they do have do not need to result in that outcome.

Yes, I know a couple of these. Gaming as teenagers mixed with a few other issues and now they’re unemployed, on benefits and unable to function in the real world and with a long road to recovery ahead.

The problem is you turn on the news (or R4) and you hear about one issue that the internet has caused, then about another separate issue, then another and then another, almost ad infinitum, but very few people are looking at it as a whole, joining the dots and realising that the repercussions have spread like a cancer through society with a whole generation of mainly children and men having their lives and/or minds ruined.

At least now people are starting to stand up to big tech - but it’s a decade or more overdue.

I’d pull the plug on the whole damn lot if I could - and with AI we’ve got an even bigger set of issues coming.