The real question is whether the benefit of better access to scientific research offsets the detriment of social media. Unfortunately, I think social media use is much, much more widespread, and is thus having a significantly stronger detrimental effect than scientific research access and every other benefit combined.
Comment on I wonder why the widespread adoption of the internet hasn't been good for society as a whole.
hansolo@lemmy.today 14 hours ago
On the whole, I would argue it has been.
Social media, on the other hand, fuck no. But the internet in general absolutely.
Knowledge sharing and research are amazingly easy now. Things that would have taken going to a library and possibly ordering 2 or 3 hard to find books, maybe several long distance phone calls, all to get 30 year old info, are now replaced by digitized records and some dude’s website.
Access to scientific research is shockingly easy now. You’re seconds away from reading up to the minute research on anything.
International standards also help. I can use my credit card anywhere on earth. Translate speech and text in real time. Email anyone anywhere. I can learn when the common scams are in a place before I go there. It helps make connecting with people possible anywhere.
Signtist@bookwyr.me 11 hours ago
hansolo@lemmy.today 35 minutes ago
It’s really only just a few platforms that are more toxic than average. “Social media” includes things like WhatsApp and Signal, which are functionally similar enough to email threads that they don’t compare to Twitter where everything is public-facing.
WhatGodIsMadeOf@feddit.org 11 hours ago
Myspace was fine… Facebook fucked humanity up without consent. Facebook killed the idea of the Internet being a cyber world of freedom. Before Facebook the Internet was handles, usernames and the idea that it was all NOT real. After Facebook everything became assumed to be reality even though it’s technically not.
hansolo@lemmy.today 32 minutes ago
Facebook actually did start off that way if you’ll recall, and you don’t have to use your real name on FB still. I was sad when my friend’s dog’s profile got deleted for very obviously being a dog. I hated FB from the start, and it was around 2010ish is when they started to get too serious about themselves.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 11 hours ago
No.
People rarely go on the internet to find data; they go on the internet to find data that tells them they are already right.
hansolo@lemmy.today 37 minutes ago
No.
Search engines exist and tell people how to spell things, simple math, and get them to things like recipes and wiki pages.
Top Google search right now in the US is emmy winners. That’s a search for information, not conformation bias.
People also can’t seek confirmation bias of they don’t know where to start.
Why confidently start of a comment with “No” and gamble with absolute when that’s a net losing tactic over the long run?
iii@mander.xyz 14 hours ago
People complain that “google has turned to shit”. But the best part of their search offering, scholar.google.com, is still as amazing as ever.
wander1236@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Google hasn’t remembered it exists yet. Don’t remind them.
hansolo@lemmy.today 13 hours ago
Google search is total shit because spammers figured out how to SEO their way into results.
Valmond@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I read they made search less good because they had 95% of the market already so now you have to spend more time with the ad-links before actually getting what you want. It was in some leaked document from 2018 IIRC.
hansolo@lemmy.today 23 minutes ago