OPINION: The internet has been a disaster for the human race

Social media, telecommunications systems, computers and the internet at large have been a disaster for the human race. While these technologies have, in a literal sense, made communications across large distances easier, the main effect of social media and the internet is two generations of lost souls, isolation, and a general feeling of discontent.

There have been, as previously mentioned, two generations now having grown up with the internet. What a great idea in the first place: to take two generations of children, their brains not even fully matured yet, who don’t yet have the level-headedness to understand all of the ideas that they see, and to give them unrestricted access to a device with the capacity to bring them an unprecedented amount of information and communications from anonymous individuals all over the world! What a great idea! Surely, there is no way for this to go wrong! These children will, of course, use social media and the internet only for educational purposes and social media to connect with their family and friends in a good, wholesome manner.

Such an optimistic view of social media surely must be gone in most people by now, when nearly everybody is forced to use social media to communicate during a pandemic shutdown. Virtually nobody is using the internet to learn about science or history or whatever else it was intended to be used for. Instead, they scroll their Twitter and Instagram and TikTok timeline, often late into the night, getting sucked further and further into the inescapable algorithm programmed perfectly to keep you engaged, staring at the glassy, brightly-lit screen as you consume meaningless popcorn content that teaches you nothing and keeps you sedated. 

Most people are finally understanding that communication over the internet is no replacement for a real-life conversation. Communication on the internet is fake, it is plastic, it is an eternal churn of pointless small talk, and it is insufferable. It is a cruel mockery of the kind of connection that real human beings can make when they meet in person. Anybody who has attempted to make a friend online understands this.

This horrific, Lovecraftian nature that social media assumes is elevated by the fact that everything you do on social media and the internet, at large, is documented and stored in massive data centers to build a profile on you. This is not a paranoid fantasy theory- it is simply true: every article, search, message, and probably other activity you are not aware of that you do on the internet is meticulously logged and stored by the government and private companies for various purposes. If that doesn’t send alarm bells ringing in your head, your human essence and fighting spirit has probably been compromised.

This is not to mention the cyberbullying, the petty drama, the proliferation of various addictions, and so much more that happens on social media. The internet was not a positive development for the human race. I have seen the best minds of my generation ruined by the internet and I’m sick of it.