[rlglwx]

But maybe we have lost something also. As a truly social species, do we not lose as a society when barriers are erected to sociability? The literature certainly points to increased social isolation among adults and children. It also makes the point that loneliness is a risk factor in things like dementia, being overweight and a litany of other ailments. I reject the notion that anything new is automatically better and has only net positive effects.

[taurath]

I don't think that's the exact argument the parent was making. We've lost just as much from the car, suburbs, and plane travel but you can't do much about them - they're there so we have to adjust.

[auganov]

If anything, most of the addictive internet stimuli are social to some degree. I do think there's an interesting analysis to be made of how social connectedness got redistributed though. Both in terms of absolute connectedness and who we're connected to.

[curious_fella1]

I would argue that these "social" parts of the internet are social in the shallowest sense of the world. E.g., telling people how your life is without actually talking to them. I would agree with above that these devices are adding to (creating?) our social isolation.

[auganov]

I don't know the numbers. But if my intuition isn't completely wrong, and I'm not a total outlier, most seem to spend a lot of time on Messenger (/other IM) talking. Usually talking about content that is social in nature.

And quite frankly, most "real-life" interactions seem to be pretty much the same. Just sitting around with phones talking about things you saw on the [social] Internet.

[robertlagrant]

> And quite frankly, most "real-life" interactions seem to be pretty much the same. Just sitting around with phones talking about things you saw on the [social] Internet

This is a bit of a sad statement. What about conversation in a group, or debate in a meeting at work, or communicating with your children, or any other kind of relationship? Not everything can be showing each other videos, as YouTube can already recommend better than humans can.

[auganov]

I'd imagine pre-Internet conversations were just as "sad". The main difference was you couldn't "show" what you were talking about. Nowadays instead of verbally describing a conversation with a friend, you'll just do a screenshot dump.

Given how much social life basically migrated to the Internet, there aren't that many happenings without a digital trace.

I mean you can't even discuss politics without talking about Trump's twitter...[0]

Just yesterday grandma was showing me pics my aunt sent her. Pics she found on cousin's Facebook profile.

[0] We already have political scandals that involve just email dumps, think how cool things are going to get when we get dumps of facebook/slack/whatever convos!