TED Conversations

ZX Style

TEDCRED 10+

This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »

Were you happier in the pre-internet era?

I am wondering if the pre internet era was a better time to live in.

Because nowadays friends and family seem to have less attention and care for one another.
It also seems to me that people are less passionate and i rarely see people with sparks in their eyes anymore.
This makes me wondering if these times are better or not.
And if not, do we have to do something about it?

Is this just me?
Am i nostalgic and exaggerating?
Am i living in the wrong environment?

Please let me know your thoughts on this!

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/

+6
Share:

Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.

  • Mar 17 2013: I remember pre-internet and thought it would be a passing fad. In 1993 when the 'www' was connected to the public domain, I was listening to Science Friday on NPR thinking humankind would never be the same. So it hasnt been. I remember we used to call people on the phone and talk for hours. Now we send an email, text, or tweet with quick one-liners. It was important to have face-to-face contact with people we met and began having a relationship with. Now, we have sordid love affairs via cyberspace. Families are broken and childhood innocence shattered of lewd revelations of pornographic nature. In some case so vile many adults are horrified. Yes our teenagers have access to this stuff. Texts get sent to people, we would rather not have. What used to be an 'oops' of misunderstanding, may be a termination of friendships or relationship; or start the next world war. But technology has done some good things, don't get me wrong. Surgeries which took hours can now be done in minutes; where death was imminent it is now not an option.
    Still I miss the days of the rotary phone, pay phone on corners, and days when people actually talked to each other. Just my opinion....
    • thumb
      Mar 18 2013: Yes you are right and in countries were people work hard they invade privacy in homes with the internet and kids in this days do not make too much differnce between a good friend and a person you just know on Internet. They have a big list of "friends" but the friendship "institution" is hardly achieved and maintained trough internet. Internet was build like cell phones for business people. Now days the short and not so short memory of people is affected becouse you run quickly to say it via phone or chat. This way something that make you surprised in a good way you do not "keep" it in your mind until you meet the friend. So for a to young person this kind of actions are lost if they use Internet or phone and become very scarce and maybe quicly forgotten. People that relay very much on Internet phones movies to have fun meet friends will have major memory problems and can go till alzheymer in older ages.
      • Mar 19 2013: The memory loss you are adressing, is that real or is it your idea?
        • thumb
          Mar 19 2013: Is my theory based on real facts and my own experience and things already happening in the world like crimes justified by mind problems. The lack of spirituality in people lifes can go till terrorism becouse of the lack of consciousness that is based on our life experiences good and bad. If a child grow with terror in movies games maybe from streets and good things are forgotten quickly by making that good moments in your life vanish almost instant via phone or chat and not written down on a letter or kept and accepted in your heart, that kid is practicaly a very easy target for bad intentioned people with persuasion abilities and if is a good person from a good family can go till alzheymer in older ages becouse his descendency is good and can not make harm and instead of acting like an "animal" prefer to let it go like this and not fight with bad "tools".

Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.