Has the internet hurt us rather than helped us?

[Karha of Honor]

Because I do feel as if in many ways the internet is holding us back. Or maybe it's just revealing how many despicable people exist out there.

I think you are seeing it backward. When I was a child before the internet exploded. Institutionalized bullying was unheard of. Not it did not happen. But because you did not hear of it in other places, the victims would not be believed. And many of those institutions would step behind threats to parents if they did fight back. Including that no evidence could be brought as proof in a court of law. Today between mobile phones and the internet, they cannot hide. I think the internet is forcing things that had been stagnant to move forward into the light.

THE iNTERNET MADE the nerdy journalists into new high school bullyies of our agora.

Yay.

[Nealithi]

Because I do feel as if in many ways the internet is holding us back. Or maybe it's just revealing how many despicable people exist out there.

I think you are seeing it backward. When I was a child before the internet exploded. Institutionalized bullying was unheard of. Not it did not happen. But because you did not hear of it in other places, the victims would not be believed. And many of those institutions would step behind threats to parents if they did fight back. Including that no evidence could be brought as proof in a court of law. Today between mobile phones and the internet, they cannot hide. I think the internet is forcing things that had been stagnant to move forward into the light.

THE iNTERNET MADE the nerdy journalists into new high school bullyies of our agora.

Yay.

How so?

[Madner Kami]

The Internet is a tool like any other and as any tool, it can be used in a constructive manner or in a destructive manner. It is always the person wielding and using it, which is either doing good or bad, so anything done via the Internet is done by the people to the people. Thus, the Internet can not have "hurt us". If anything, we hurt ourselves.
Also, given that the Internet is a tool, it is by it's very definition helping us to do things and what these things are, whether they better or worsen us, well, see above. The answer to the question given is thus: Mu.

Interpreting the question as "Is the Internet used more constructively or more destructively?", there can be only one answer: More Construtively. It brought the people closer together, thanks to the free flow of information. Everyone has access to everything that humanity has ever done, has ever thought, has ever created and it's all just a few strokes of keys away. How can that not be the best thing, the best tool we ever created? It surpasses the invention of writing in terms of improving us a thousandfold (ignoring that without writing, the Internet wouldn't exist of course, but then again, without the first stone tool, we'd not have set on the moon...).

Of course this access to everything also drags the less... constructive elements of human wisdom into the same light as everything else. Having access to every knwoledge is not the same as using the knowledge wisely. Being able to spread ideas is not the same as spreading good ideas. And in the end it's down to the individual user, to use the knowledge attainable in a manner that improves us or hurts us.

Because I do feel as if in many ways the internet is holding us back. Or maybe it's just revealing how many despicable people exist out there.

Thanks to the internet, I have access to every culture on this planet in a way that simply was not possible as long as there was only the book or the TV. I could read about a lot of things, but interacting with those other people is obviously something entirely different. For example, before the Internet my only access to eastern asian cultures were a few books in our local library and my horizon was limited by how far I could travel. Today, I am watching chinese movies, japanese animes, read manga and korean manwha. I can walk through the streets of Rio de Janeiro in Street View. I can watch live how we venture into space and I can watch Earth from above at any time of my choosing. Thanks to the games I play with other people, I was invited to Iran, simply because I played an online game with someone from there.

Tell me, how is this holding us back? How is this not the best thing invented, since sliced bread? Despicable people have always been there, always done their things. At least the Internet gives us the ability to call them on their bullshit, to show everyone willing to have a look, what makes these people and their ideas despicable in the first place.

[Karha of Honor]

Because I do feel as if in many ways the internet is holding us back. Or maybe it's just revealing how many despicable people exist out there.

I think you are seeing it backward. When I was a child before the internet exploded. Institutionalized bullying was unheard of. Not it did not happen. But because you did not hear of it in other places, the victims would not be believed. And many of those institutions would step behind threats to parents if they did fight back. Including that no evidence could be brought as proof in a court of law. Today between mobile phones and the internet, they cannot hide. I think the internet is forcing things that had been stagnant to move forward into the light.

THE iNTERNET MADE the nerdy journalists into new high school bullyies of our agora.

Yay.

How so?

Did you miss the long witch hunting season that started a few years ago?

[Nealithi]

Because I do feel as if in many ways the internet is holding us back. Or maybe it's just revealing how many despicable people exist out there.

I think you are seeing it backward. When I was a child before the internet exploded. Institutionalized bullying was unheard of. Not it did not happen. But because you did not hear of it in other places, the victims would not be believed. And many of those institutions would step behind threats to parents if they did fight back. Including that no evidence could be brought as proof in a court of law. Today between mobile phones and the internet, they cannot hide. I think the internet is forcing things that had been stagnant to move forward into the light.

THE iNTERNET MADE the nerdy journalists into new high school bullyies of our agora.

Yay.

How so?

Did you miss the long witch hunting season that started a few years ago?

Since I do not know what you are referring to, I have to say yes. May I have a link to review what you are referring to please?

[Karha of Honor]

Because I do feel as if in many ways the internet is holding us back. Or maybe it's just revealing how many despicable people exist out there.

I think you are seeing it backward. When I was a child before the internet exploded. Institutionalized bullying was unheard of. Not it did not happen. But because you did not hear of it in other places, the victims would not be believed. And many of those institutions would step behind threats to parents if they did fight back. Including that no evidence could be brought as proof in a court of law. Today between mobile phones and the internet, they cannot hide. I think the internet is forcing things that had been stagnant to move forward into the light.

THE iNTERNET MADE the nerdy journalists into new high school bullyies of our agora.

Yay.

How so?

Did you miss the long witch hunting season that started a few years ago?

Since I do not know what you are referring to, I have to say yes. May I have a link to review what you are referring to please?

Cancel culture being cheerleaded by them.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Yeah, like how we don't have more police brutality, it's just that everyone has a phone camera now to catch it in action.

[Yukaphile]

I guess it's like what Admiral X said. It's not the internet that's held us back, it's social media.

[Riedquat]

It has its ups and downs. As well as the things mentioned I don't like the way it's trivialised knowledge or helped to push society in a direction where we're less and less likely to ever set foot outside the house, where daily interaction with other human beings for mundane tasks is less and less the norm.

[clearspira]

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Same with the internet. Its a tool that hasn't harmed anyone, its the people that use it.

As for my opinion, Fact is that I now have 99% of human knowledge at my fingertips. I can buy food and drink from around the world, research cultures and societies that I would never know about otherwise, and talk to people like you guys for better or for worse. We never would have met otherwise, never heard each others opinions. That has got to count for something.

What the internet is though is the greatest social experiment in human history: what happens if you give everyone a worldwide voice, near unlimited knowledge, and anonymity. The answer on the surface seems to be dickheads, echo chambers and fake news; but there have been plenty of good deeds too. Fund raising for sick children on the other side of the world for example.