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Gen Xers and Older Millennials Say They'd Prefer to Live in an Era Before the Internet (fastcompany.com) 284

A new Harris Poll shared exclusively with Fast Company found that most Americans would prefer to live "in a simpler era before everyone was obsessed with screens and social media," reports Fast Company, adding "this sentiment is especially strong among older millennials and Gen Xers."

The Wrap summarizes the poll results: 77% of middle-age Americans (35-54 years old) say they want to return to a time before society was "plugged in," meaning a time before there was widespread internet and cell phone usage...

63% of younger folks (18-34 years old) were also keen on returning to a pre-plugged-in world, despite that being a world they largely never had a chance to occupy. In total, 67% of respondents said they'd prefer things as they used to be versus as they are now.

"Interestingly, baby boomers were slightly less eager to time hop, with only 60% of people over 55 saying they'd prefer to return to yesteryear," notes Fast Company: While Americans may want to unshackle themselves from the burden of constant connectivity, an overwhelming 90% also said that being open-minded about new technologies is important, a finding that mostly held up across demographics. About half of respondents even said they tend to adopt new technologies before most people they know...

Just over half said they found keeping up with new technologies overwhelming, and about that same percentage said they believe technology is more likely to divide people than unite them. Here, it was younger respondents who took the most pessimistic view, with 57% of people under 35 agreeing that technology divides, versus 43% who disagreed.

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Gen Xers and Older Millennials Say They'd Prefer to Live in an Era Before the Internet

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  • Indeed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @08:42PM (#63614112)

    Back in simpler times, I would have been free of the compulsion to post a snarky comment in response to the article summary at the top of this page.

  • by quintus_horatius ( 1119995 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @08:43PM (#63614114) Homepage
    I don't want to give up internet. I just want others to give it up.
  • by lucasnate1 ( 4682951 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @08:45PM (#63614116) Homepage

    As someone who grew up in a shitty rural town, and managed to improve his lot by learning to program, I have to wonder how many of those people who miss the old times were born to lots of money.

    • In the 90s, my elementary school library had a book on BASIC, and a lab full of Apple IIs that booted to an interpreter. I also bought a book on C from the local book store, I think that was around $30.

      The fact that education is now equated with "born to lots of money" is a whole separate problem in itself.

      Additionally, nobody who answered this survey is a programmer. They are people who equate the internet with their social media app-icons, plus maybe Amazon and eBay.

    • Same here.

      My family was middling income, and the year I could apply for University for a degree course was the year the government dropped free tuition, meaning suddenly a degree cost several thousand more - but the plethora of support for anyone-that-isnt-bottom-income that is now available was not in place back then, so because my parents actually earned a wage above minimum meant I was expected to get loans or not go to university.

      So I didnt go.

      25 years later, Im exactly where I would be if I had gone to

    • I have to wonder how many of those people who miss the old times were born to lots of money.

      They were born in a time of historically low income inequality. I guess that counts as "lots of money".

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Hell, I'm Gen X and I can't see myself giving up the Internet for many reasons. First, the ability to meet up with people who have similar interests. Second, the ability to get information as well as products is just way easier. E-commerce is revolutionary even if you're in a big city if you need to get that one rare item.

      I know life pre-Internet. And I'm not sure I want to return to it. If you think datasheets are hard now with NDAs and such, they're even harder when you're having to write requests in, sen

  • by quintessencesluglord ( 652360 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @08:45PM (#63614118)

    Barring some types of billing or work related; the internet is largely optional. Social media doubly so. You're not even required to have a smart phone.

    Go play outside already.

    The only beneficial aspect of the past was just assuming most people were idiots instead of having documented proof.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday June 19, 2023 @12:17AM (#63614490)
      And other people using social media and abusing it affect you too whether you use it or not.
    • Talk to us in 5-10 years where contactless payments will likely be the only option for paying certain bills ... the Great Freakout likely accelerated that bullshit.
    • by Hans Lehmann ( 571625 ) on Monday June 19, 2023 @04:24AM (#63614804)

      "You're not even required to have a smart phone."

      In front of a nearby restaurant there's a city owned parking space with an EV charger. The city will give you a parking ticket if you're parked there while not charging your car. The only way to activate the charger is with an app that you must install on your smartphone. There is no other way, you can't swipe a credit card, you can't deposit cash into a slot.

      So yes, in this instance, you are required to have a smart phone.

      • Yeah, the way they're deploying EV chargers without a payment terminal is dumb. Instead, you have to create an account with a few charging companies and download and use their apps. IMHO, there should only be payment terminals: no accounts and no apps. (Fortunately for me, I so far have never had to charge anywhere other than home.)
  • Gen X here (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Revek ( 133289 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @08:56PM (#63614138)
    I like the internet for the most part. Of course I haven't logged into facebook in years and reddit for over a week now. I liked getting online a lot more when I was pretty much the only one I knew who did. Those years were a golden time and what I did was really nothing compared to what I do today. Its not the online part I dislike. Its the unhinged yokels who use it.
    • by Barny ( 103770 )

      Same. Late GenX, and am perfectly happy with the internet. Social networks need to be taken in small doses and not become the center of your life. In that way, I am super happy with how techbro CEOs seem to keep fucking them up—more opportunity to drag friends and family out of those doom-spirals and back into the sunshine.

    • Re:Gen X here (Score:5, Interesting)

      by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @11:44PM (#63614434) Homepage Journal

      Its the unhinged yokels who use it.

      Personally, I don't care if unhinged yokels use the Internet. What I can't stand is when unhinged yokels get thrown into my face by companies hoping to monetize annoying me with them. Remember the XKCD "someone is wrong on the Internet" cartoon? Companies realized that they could get a boost of revenue by algorithmically showing people "hot takes" online, getting them to reply, increasing page views, and therefore ad views. Of course, when everything becomes nothing but a stream of hot takes and people trying to build your outrage, the Internet becomes tiring. And that's what I think people are feeling.

      I don't want to go back to an Internet before social media or an Internet where most people didn't use it. I want to go back to an Internet before it was taken over by advertisers and managers focused on short term profits at the cost of long term stability. There was a brief, golden age when social media could be used to connect with real people, before everything was monetized by advertising.

      The real problem is that people these days aren't willing to pay for anything. Back in the "good old days" of the Internet, you'd pay your ISP, and your ISP would provide what today we'd call "social media." It was funded by the people using them to connect with other people. These days, everything is funded by ads. People aren't willing to pay for things, so everything ends up being ad-funded and focused on increasing ad views.

      • The unhinged yokels used to be amusing. They were always on the Internet/Usenet/BBSs since the beginnings. The problem is that they've gained a mainstream audience due to the mass popularity of the Internet, and social media tends to amplify the most controversial/rage-inducing opinions. The problem is less yokels, more their access to a ready audience.
  • by mschuyler ( 197441 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @09:01PM (#63614150) Homepage Journal

    I'm 74. I just find it amusing that so many youngins want to return to "simpler times." I think the "good old days" were called "these trying times" when we went through them. I'm not so happy with the politics, but I am very happy with the tech. Rock on!

    • You're old enough to remember when a fax machine was high tech and progressive rock was king.
      • That's nothing. When I was young, you called an Uber by standing out in the rain yelling at cars. This was considered a basic feature of city life.

        • I still do (in NYC) ... actually, I don't yell as much as wave my hand. On the rare occasion that I need a hire car, taxis have actually become on par with Uber, if not cheaper.

          Problem is in the outer boroughs, taxis are scarce ... but you can usually do Uber once, then get the driver's phone number/card. It's beneficial for everyone not to go through Uber. Cash in pocket almost always wins.

  • by Babel-17 ( 1087541 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @09:02PM (#63614154)

    Lol, the generations that thinks it's weird when older folks would rather talk on the phone than text? Yeah, I'll say this is just a case of thinking out loud, which is fine!

    P.S. Robert Silverberg's The Time Hoppers comes to mind.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @09:04PM (#63614158)

    Old days always looked better but they weren't I mean .. look at the homicde rate in the early 1990s when 95% of the US population didn't have email. The murder rate was double. Also check the 1920s etc. Check out this really good reference: https://sites.nationalacademie... [nationalacademies.org]

  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @09:06PM (#63614162)
    Nothing is stopping them except their own choices.
  • by Morpeth ( 577066 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @09:23PM (#63614194)

    GenX'er here. I think there may be a big distinction between the 'classic' internet of old for say web browsing, old forums, shopping, ordering food etc., and then what came with social media -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc.

    I'd be curious if the poll made a distinction if it would be different, I think many generations might still want the internet but have come to see the problems with social media.

    • by xwin ( 848234 )
      I think internet is great if used correctly. I am amazed at young people not taking advantage of all the good things it has to offer but instead taking advantage of all the bad things.
      When I was at school and needed to solve math problem, I had to dig into a book and find similar example so I could understand the approach. Now you just google and numerous youtube videos come up. Need to double check an answer - wolframalpha will solve it for you and present you with an answer. Now google bard will solve th
      • by newcastlejon ( 1483695 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @10:34PM (#63614340)

        Now you just google and numerous youtube videos come up.

        Don't you just love it when the top results for a question are all ten minute videos, usually all starting with "hey guys", and not the three lines of text that are really all that was needed?

        Same thing when you're looking for some collectible in a game; it's not that I don't appreciate the effort that goes into making game guides, it's just that sometimes a jpg of the map with an X drawn on it is preferable to scrolling through a video trying to find the damn thing.

  • For me the compromise is to turn off all the notifications that make social media into a sort of "slot machine" on my phone. I've also managed to turn off all notifications across most of my apps--and I've even put e-mail notifications on a 15 minute delay, and only from certain individuals. That way I'm only interrupted when I think it's important, rather than because the app thinks it's important I hear about someone's ice cream photos.
  • all them youngster want to do away with that.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by rally2xs ( 1093023 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @09:31PM (#63614222)

    It appears that the oldest surveyed were born at or after 1979. So, by the time they really became aware, they had electronic games, at least, even if it might have been Space Invaders at an arcade, but if you want to get really primitive, try going back to the 50's. There's a thing called boredom, which was our heavyweight prize fight for those of us growing up. My memory has never been great, and so I got interested in science and had stacks and stacks of Pop Sci and Pop Mech, would read them cover to cover, and then a few years later, do it again, 'cuz I forgot the details of the less interesting stuff. OK, show me an article where they get Nuke Fusion to work, I'd likely remember it after reading it once, but the 75th iteration of the flying car from yet another person's pipe dream would go flying overhead into deep space.

    But anyone with a computer and is bored is, well, I dunno. I just don't understand. I started playing Quake 3 in the 90's, play it most every day, and have killed over 240,000 bots to date. Love that game. And am never completely bored even if the net is down. If grid goes down, then yeah, that's a problem, but that's rare.

    No, I like Social Media, and keeping up with friends from my high school class of '65. Really nice. I don't think there's much I'd change now that Musk has booted the censorship fans from twitter. Or maybe Musk can take over Facebook next. Or merge Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook into "YouTwitFace."

  • by Bobknobber ( 10314401 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @09:48PM (#63614248)

    Speaking from the younger side of this conversation, I do think part of it stems from a sense of feeling overwhelmed.

    Things have become more interconnected, turbulent, and volatile. Younger and older generations alike see all the bad news being blasted to their eyeballs at nigh instantaneous speeds, and feel utterly helpless in the face of an uncertain future. Misery loves company after all, and people love to spread it around like the plague via social media and the like, creating a feedback loop of sorts that is routinely exploited by said social media entities. Bad news is awful, and yet so addicting we simply cannot look away like we do at a gory train wreck.

    Then you have all the cyberbullying, harassment, doxing, mob hate, theft, and the just plain trolling that allows anonymous individuals to get away with little to really stop them. It feels dehumanizing at times, especially when being on the receiving end of a dedicated bullying campaign by hundreds, thousands, or even millions of anonymous users.

    Personally I do not dislike the internet persay, moreso what it seems to be turning into. I think a bigger issue is that the WWW we all grew up with is being gutted and sectioned up by a handful of companies. It is frankly absurd how much power the likes of Google, Twitter, Meta, etc have over the web, and in turn our lives. Their role in the Arab Spring back in the day was a harbinger of things to come, and still we have no real recourse against that type of power.
    And then you have the likes of Reddit shitting the bed by wit of their idiocy and lack of care for the communities they have fostered. And now we have AI tech threatening to turn the internet into one giant, glorified botnet. Just imagine a future where no one will be able to tell if a user is actually a human or just a really convincing bot, and the scary part is we may come to accept that over proper human interaction.

    Tl;dr modern web is turning into a bot-filled dumpster fire and people conflate it with internet bad as a whole.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      per se. It comes from Latin.
      Just FYI.
  • I would just like (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @09:55PM (#63614254)

    I would just like a time before Google, Amazon, Facebook, marketers, advertising companies and similar. It's the bat-shit evil companies destroying the Internet. It now seems every company is looking to use the Internet to somehow control and screw you over with the aforementioned companies showing the way. The promise of the Internet to unite and inform has been severely skewered by Silicon Valley. Advertising companies have done the most damage.

    • They were just as bad before, it just wasn't quite as in your face and they didn't have the tools to be as evil as they could be.

      Everything humans build gets abused - the Internet was created not to let information be free (though some of the early people involved clearly wanted that), but to ensure the bureaucracy could survive a nuclear strike.

      What is really regrettable is that the system was originally built on the assumption that it wouldn't be abused. A little more paranoia and a little less unicorns

  • Joseph Campbell (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sursurrus ( 796632 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @10:11PM (#63614282)

    In _The Hero with a Thousand Faces_ Joe Campbell eloquently explains why both archaism and futurism can't and won't work for society.

    Archaism -- the desire to return to the past, often a golden era. The problem is that the remembered past is not the same as the actual past... and also human nature and destiny moves forward with time.

    Futurism -- the desire to plan for and logically create, step by step, a future society which we all work hard to move towards. This can't work because it is impossible to plan for and foresee future events, let alone convince everyone to work together on some grand plan.

    Instead human society evolves in a deeply mythological way, via death and rebirth. If Archaism is symbolic of the Womb, and Futurism is symbolic of the Tomb, then the actual future is elements of the old reborn as the new.

    The takeaway from the survey is that the current state of things needs to, and will eventually, die when enough people feel as those surveyed did. It's not the _things_ we have that are the problem, it is peoples' minds. Right now for all our fancy technology, we are brainwashed into desiring ever greater amounts of consumption. Part of that is an endless feedback loop of dopamine addiction, analogous to endless overeating. We're waking up to the fact that technological overeating is making those who do it... really fucking sick. The next transformation must be inward... where we turn off and tune in to our deeper states of consciousness. Like the sorcerer's apprentice we've unleashed magic without fully understanding it... and there is no sorcerer coming home eventually to save us. Those who overconsume technology are already barely functional addicts, with ever shortening lifespans and ever increasing mental disorders. As other people on here say, the way out is to choose. Choose what is healthy over what feels good. Understand the endless Matrix-like structures urging us to amass more and more wealth in order to increase our personal consumption and choose not to be a human battery feeding the false god of technology.

    It'll happen, because eventually the ones who can master their use of technology without becoming addicts will be the only ones left. I urge you to be one of those people

  • Where there's some valid reasons for disconnecting from the Internet, they clearly don't understand the full concept.

    First off, you're reliant on the community being non-hostile. If there's a local bully, he's going to be more of a problem. If your community is gentrified (and it will be), it's stagnant.

    When growing up, you're more reliant on parents, and that's widely variable. You have to go to shops to purchase things, and if you're in a semi-rural area, that's possibly an hour trip.

    Currently, one can do

  • by BytePusher ( 209961 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @10:53PM (#63614362) Homepage
    The problem isn't being plugged in, but who controls the development of these technologies and how they monetize it
  • by misnohmer ( 1636461 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @11:05PM (#63614380)
    I wonder what the results would be if we separated social media and the rest of the internet uses. Social media is what gave a megaphone to anyone with a conspiracy theory, anyone who invented a new reason to be offended, hate speech, etc. It is a propaganda super-spreader and a giant evolutionary incubator of incendiary sensationalism, It also allow fringes of societies to band together and recruit new members. IMO humans as a species has not evolved far enough to be able to inter-communicate at this speed and scale.
    • Or maybe it normalizes the fringe ... conspiratists that would have been on BBSs, handing out fringe zines, or in dark corners of Usenet suddenly have a mainstream audience that they can radicalize.
  • The problem is the corporate stranglehold on the Internet, and the consolidation of what was once a rich tapestry of companies, organizations and hobbyists, into a spigot of gray ooze.

  • by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Sunday June 18, 2023 @11:57PM (#63614474)

    It's better now

  • Say that I have my choice of different parts of the US and any EU (or Schengen) country ... any recommendations for where to move for the next decade or two, that's generally not as social-media obsessed and where people tend to interact more in person? I'm not looking for "no Internet", as much as a place where it doesn't play as central of a role in people's lives, and where in-person interaction is still valued. As in a technologically advanced society that doesn't consume as many empty social calories
  • by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Monday June 19, 2023 @12:53AM (#63614542)

    I'm 52. I wish for a time when the masses weren't so polarized and just fucking thrilled to hate each other so much. You know, when the question of, "Who did you vote for?" was considered rude. I don't glorify the past - the problems were always there. But the internet made it so, so, so much worse. The online world turned closet shitheads into loud, proud, obnoxious imbeciles. The worst in people were given a platform to revel in the muck. And if I were a betting man (and I've been known to be) I would wager better-than-even that the schisms being driven into society by obsessive connectedness will take a century or more to unravel.

    But... I wouldn't turn back the clock. I think we have to go through this as a civilization... and although it'll take more than the rest of my lifetime to get over the hump, it needs to be done. I forget who it was that said that if you suddenly gave everybody the ability to read minds, society would collapse immediately. The internet is a middle ground - we'll see how it goes.

    My retirement doesn't include internet access. It does, however, come equipped with a fishing rod, a lake lot, a wood stove, and a couple of cases of good scotch.

    • I feel like there was plenty of hatred to go around post-Civil War, in the 1920s (Red Scare, etc), 1950s/1960s (anti-civil-rights riots) ... maybe the 80s and 90s were just comparatively peaceful times domestically.

      I think the problem is larger than that, especially post-COVID ... people have a limited capacity for social attention, and the time spent consuming "empty calories" online reduces ability to interact spontaneously in person.

  • The real answer was "returning to a pre-plugged-in world" which is totally different from an era before the internet. What they are clamoring for is to not have a mobile internet and social media in their pocket. Big BIG difference to an era before the internet, because I seriously doubt anybody want to go back in an era where you have to do ALL sort of shit manually , in queues, or per fax.
    • Not even that ... removing the societal/employer expectation that everyone needs to be "on" and "connected" 25/8/366 is three quarters of the battle. The other one quarter is discouraging companies from requiring an app or smartphone to do basic things that didn't require either prior to COVID.

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