The Internet- Take Two

You’ll notice that the title of this post is “Internet- Take TWO”. That’s an odd title isn’t it? I mean we’re technically in or passing “Web 3.0”, so it shouldn’t be in relation to that. So what the heck am I talking about here?

Well, if you haven’t noticed yet- I slipped on my bi-monthly posting goal I had set for myself. It didn’t take long, as shortly after I made it through my quarterly run, well, it’s been over a month since my last post. Yes there were some main culprits creeping up that stalled me, however this one also came down to the subject matter I wanted to discuss- the old internet.

I find it fascinating how my internet habits have so drastically changed since I first started hearing the screeching sounds of a modem back in the Prodigy days about 30 years ago now. I wanted to look back but also not get trapped in some nostalgia hack post a la Buzzfeed in the early part of this century. I don’t mean to discredit Buzzfeed in those days- those listicles worked at getting gobs of eyeballs on their content and now they’ve evolved into a reputable news source, but yea- this isn’t going to be one of those.

Anyways, “take one” of that post ended up being more sad than anything else. It made me long for the days of signing into AOL and seeing who was available on my buddy list to randomly strike up a conversation with. Message boards that weren’t cluttered with a barrage of political nonsense and you could at least know you most likely knew a bot wasn’t on the other side. I made silly content like web pages constantly about things like my friends annual “Black Friday Bowl” football game or recaps of “Sponge Soccer” games that a coworker of mine and I would play in the stockroom to fill in downtimes at work (don’t ask- ok, well do. Sponge soccer was kicking around a loofa in the.. Wait, nevermind- it was just silly but we purposely made a big deal out of it for fun).

The internet was powerful, it still is- but back then there wasn’t this huge agenda behind every single platform or website. There were advertisements, and they were UGLY a lot of the time, but they weren’t super targeted and absolutely relentless (If you only saw how many different golf shirts get advertised to me on Instagram after just clicking on one out of vague curiosity- wow!). AOL and Yahoo were akin to the central locations like META products, Reddit, and whatever microblogging platform we use now are- but I never felt like AOL was trying to steer my political views or suck me into some fringe community that isn’t good for me. I wasn’t farming for likes or clout- ok, I did have web counters on my websites but my life did not center around seeing that number go up. Notifications were just for email and the only time I thought about AI was when a sports video game had come out and how varied playing against the computer would be.

Present day the internet is monstrous- you can’t avoid it, nor do I want to. Its presence allows me to literally work from home every day of the year- that was unfathomable to me even ten years ago and it has made my quality of life so much better and a whole lot less stressful (oh man do I detest traffic!). It connects me to stores to buy basically any product I want and provides typically trustworthy reviews that I can read about before I spend any money on it. My TV, Music, and other entertainment comes through truly on demand.

Some of you might be going, “Ok, thanks Captain Obvious for telling me what the internet is”, but seriously, take a step back and think about your life 30 years ago (if you were alive) and try to appreciate it– yes, even with all of the absolute trash that is currently on it. No pun intended- it is a net positive, but man we really have to take the time and thought to be careful in how we use it.

I still don’t have an ending to this as thoughts race through my head of “Well we're not going to stop using the internet nor should we”, however I may have some suggestions. Taking intentional breaks can pay real dividends to not just your mental health but also how you appreciate things in real life. Take the time to actually hang out with your friends in person. Don’t just rely on social media to be the only way you keep up with each other. What you say and post online does have real effects on others’ lives- I suggest trying to make others better instead of complaining or being intentionally toxic.

In the end, the internet is just a tool that we use to gain access to things we don’t have in our immediate vicinity, be it a product, service, conversation, video, etc. It’s up to us to be mindful when we use this powerful tool and not get caught up in the anonymity and its potential toxic corners. Also don't let this power complete abstract away all of your skill sets, be it technical, social, or anywhere in between.

I don’t even know where I’m going with this and I don’t want to do a “Take three”, so I’m just going to let this baby bird fly for now. Maybe I’ll revisit it another time.

P.S. The roughly two-week turnaround to write what I hoped would be interesting and engaging stuff is just a little too tight with all that’s going on in my life. This is going to turn into just a monthly thing because of that. To keep up subscribe to the RSS feed or just bookmark this site (www.soatblog.com) and visit it each month.