What does the internet do for you?

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Some days I love it for the mind-expanding support network of invisible friends that it is, and some days I hate it for leaching away precious time which I really ought to be spending on other things.

What do you love (or hate) about the internet (the internet in general, or message boards/sites/blogs/IM/chat in particular)? How (if at all) has it changed your life? What do you get out of being part of it?

― C J (C J), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:34 (twenty years ago)

It makes me stop.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:38 (twenty years ago)

The interweb enables me to keep contact with friends I'd never otherwise see.

However, I often find it frustrating, in that it forces me to have exposure to unpleasant people I would normally go to great lengths to avoid contact with.

― MIS Information (kate), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:39 (twenty years ago)

How so, Kate? Surely the beauty of the web compared with real life is that it's easier to avoid people you don't like?

― C J (C J), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:40 (twenty years ago)

Avoid as in not actually see or respond to, yes. But then in a way, that's bad, because sometimes it prevents me from participating in a discussion I really would like to contribute to on a deeper level.

― MIS Information (kate), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:42 (twenty years ago)

It makes me willy hard!!!

― Paul Kelly (kelly), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:46 (twenty years ago)

Sorry, Clearly the Internet makes me very purile on a Tuesday afternoon.

― Paul Kelly (kelly), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:46 (twenty years ago)

Sometimes I wonder that I depend on it too much for my social contact. But it's hard not to when you're working hours as long as mine.

― MIS Information (kate), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:46 (twenty years ago)

Yes, I think that's a good point Kate. Sometimes I wonder if I actually expect too much from the internet - like some sort of cure-all.

― C J (C J), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:52 (twenty years ago)

The internet! The cause of, and solution to, all my probems :/

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:54 (twenty years ago)

It's an acceptable way of wasting time at work.

― Leon C. (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 09:59 (twenty years ago)

otm

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 10:00 (twenty years ago)

OTM! Thats right!

― battlingspacemonkey (battlingspacemonkey), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 10:02 (twenty years ago)

Wow. I have trouble conceiving of a life where something's primary goal is "wasting time".

I don't think everything should serve some kind of purpose... but the purposes that drive me are more along the idea of "socialising" or "stimulating intellectual curiosity and providing information".

I'm not saying that there haven't been times when I viewed the internet as primarily a way to waste time. But they weren't very happy times.

― MIS Information (kate), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 10:04 (twenty years ago)

"Hui-sze said to Kwang-sze: "I have a large tree which men called Ailantus Glandulosa, or ‘the fetid tree.’ Its trunk swells out to a large size, but is not fit for a carpenter to apply his line to it. When he looks up at its smaller branches they are so twisted and crooked that they cannot be made into rafters and beams, when he looks down to its root, its trunk is divided into so many rounded portions that neither coffin nor shelf could be made from it. Lick one of its leaves and your mouth feels torn and wounded. The mere smell of them makes a man frantic, as if intoxicated, for more than three whole days on end. Though it were planted in the most convenient spot besides the road no builder would turn his head to look at it. Now your words, Sir, are great, but of no use: all unite in putting time away from them.”

"Kwang-sze replied: "Can it be that you have never seen the pole cat, how is crouches waiting for the mouse, ready to leap this way or that, high or low, till one day it lands plump on a spring of a trap and dies in the snare? And what about the Yak, so large that it is like a cloud hanging in the sky? It maintains this vast bulk but would be quite incapable of catching a mouse. You, Sir, have a large tree and are troubled because it is of no use; why do you not plant it in the realm of Nothing Whatever, or in the wilds of the unpastured desert? There you might saunter idly by its side, or in the enjoyment of untroubled ease sleep and dream beneath it. Neither bill nor axe would shorten its existence; there would be nothing to injure it. What is there in its uselessness to cause you distress?"

(KWANG-SZE, I & IV)

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 10:07 (twenty years ago)

I love that story.

― moley, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 10:45 (twenty years ago)

the girl downstairs once said 'i don't understand how people can look at the internet for 30 minutes at a time' which struck me as a bit odd - access to the biggest library in the world and you can't find half an hour's worth of things to read.

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 11:17 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but the sad truth is people don't go online to read gems from the biggest library in the world. They log on to read threads about Big Brother on stupid message boards.

― tom windish, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 11:20 (twenty years ago)

big brother feh! i log on to read about beauty and the geek!

although i probably do take advantage of the "library" a bit more than the average bear.

― SHINE ON AMERICA (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 12:15 (twenty years ago)

I like the internet at the moment, but I have to say message boards/forums are something I frequent on a daily basis. I am always myself & treat other people how I would in real life. It really gets to me sometimes when people are extremely rude or offensive when you know damn well they wouldn't do it in real life.

― PinXorchiXoR (Pinkpanther), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 12:21 (twenty years ago)

Teh interweb be doing my laundry. And cooking. Gardening, too. And take my prostamol for me.

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 12:24 (twenty years ago)

being inundated with information.

― nathalie's post modern sleaze fest (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 12:36 (twenty years ago)

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