of course i have...but how many other people have?

All the time.

I think it's exactly the opposite. I learn way more about tangential stuff now than I do pre-internet. It's not even close. It's just super easy to click around when you see something else of even minimal interest.

I help my kids with math by telling them to go to khan academy. ****ing love the internet.

This is my #1 problem with cell phones. It's taken us what, 15 years for everyone to expect to be able to contact you 24/7 through that phone glued to your hand? I do not enjoy that expectation. I get ill when I see people showing up at a campsite and checking for bars first thing. I swear I'm mentally pushing 80. People are absolutely appalled if I do something like forget my phone in the car or whatever. I've gotten to the point where most of my friends and family know I'm terrible about remembering to bring my phone everywhere, and I leave out the part where most of the time I've done it on purpose.

It's called the frontpage of reddit and, er, yeah.

first thought is you're trying to prove me wrong, but correct thought is you just proved me right.

I've spent years cultivating which sites to follow via RSS, and spend at least an hour a day reading them, probably more. So now I know a lot more than I used to, on a wider range of topics, and I enjoy finding out about it. The internet has been great for me, there.

An automatic system that did a good job of that cultivation would be great. Facebook or Twitter can't do the same thing, they just reflect your current ideas/your friend's current ideas back at you. I don't think forums etc can do it either, Reddit is fine as a distraction, but you aren't going to learn much from it. http://dish.andrewsullivan.com came pretty close for me, bar the religious nonsense every Sunday, but that was far from automatic.

Sciolist, check your pms

Whoops, sorry.

Online dating thread is a cesspool.

It blows my mind that people who grew up with the internet suck at using it. I'm currently back in school so am surrounded by people who have had the internet their entire lives, and most of the time I'm one of only very small number of people who had the sense to google the problem they are trying to solve. "omg, you can find the answer to these online?", even **** like textbooks which you would think is a no brainer, I still come across people who are shocked that you could just download for free the book that costs $250 (not that I would condone such activities!).

I also tutor calculus, and whenever I show someone one of the dozens of sites that will step by step solve the integration problem they struggled with for hours. This look of amazement comes over their face. Even when I tell them stuff youd think they should know like "there are tons of youtube videos that explain these subjects if you dont understand it from your teacher" Im often met with "oh wow, I'll have to do that, I didnt know!"

I really kind of think most young people just view the internet as a portal for social media, gossip, news and wikipedia, and that's it.

As someone who grew up looking **** up in the actual encyclopedia for fun, im sure the internet would have been amazing for me, but for most people? meh

The combination of internet + smartphone is absolutely insane when you think about it. We now have direct and immediate access to almost the entire sum of human knowledge available 24/7, from almost anywhere.

If people choose to use that power to endlessly apply dog nose filters to their selfies, so be it.

Yeah, drawing parallels to Star Trek, which is > 50 years old:
- > light speed travel lol
- interstellar travel lol
- hand-held, laser based weapons lol
- limited teleportation lol

- current smart phone >>>>> communicators in every way except supposed range

I tutor some charity internet classes at the local community center. It is CRAZY how many comparatively young people never used the internet, have no idea how to get it or in which ways it could improve their life.

I asked a dude from this class what for has he a smartphone at all if he only calls and texts. He didn't realize that he could do the same on a 10 euro instead of 200 euro phone.

Seems somewhat regular to me?

I was out with a college friend of mine who runs a quantum mechanics lab at a major university. His approach to college calculus: sit on his butt until he figured it out, and refuse assistance from any source whatever. If you really really want to learn something well, that’s the way to do it. It takes immense discipline, far more than I have.

And yet we’re far far dumber and more polarized as a society. Go figure.

The first seems incorrect, the second is definitely true imo.

I don't think we're dumber per se, but we're much worse at disagreeing. Echo chambers lead us far into the extremes of the must virulent memes.

This seems very much true and in line with the polarization of the world. Echo chambers and anonymity on the internet contribute to terrible conversations. A general lack of respect is also one of the things I really miss about this world.

I have very deliberately and over the course of time changed my posting style for exactly this reason. I disagree with many people over most things, but I take a fair amount of care to be respectful and decent — unless I can crack a really good joke, in which case all that goes out the window.

I’ve met both chop and Sciolist live. Both are excellent conversationalists.

.
That's probably why he's doing something useful and you're making all the money.

Touché.