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Ask Slashdot: How Will The Internet Affect The Next Generation? 190

Posted by EditorDavid from the kids-today dept.
dryriver writes: Growing up in the 1980s/90s I don't remember being embroiled in many "heated arguments" with youths my own age. There were small differences of opinion on various things -- whether a band is a great or not, whether a book is worth reading or whatever -- but nothing anywhere near the heated opinion battles that can be seen in every corner of the Internet today. It doesn't matter what the topic is -- music, games, films, religion, tech, history, science, politics -- people are battling each other on the internet.

And today's youth don't live in little "go to school, then go back home to your parents" cocoons anymore. You can watch them bashing each other over the head on the Internet in every computer games, software, pop culture, gaming hardware or other forum on the Internet. So the question is, when these kids grow into adults someday, will the Internet have given them the intellectual tools to understand others, and respect differences of opinions with others? Or are we looking at adults in the year 2040 or so who are very much still in "Internet combat mode" in their real world interactions?

To pose the question more bluntly: Will the Internet generation growing up today become "Generation Tolerance" or "Generation Fight", and how will the world change if the latter comes true?
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Ask Slashdot: How Will The Internet Affect The Next Generation? More

Ask Slashdot: How Will The Internet Affect The Next Generation?

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  • It will make them computer illiterate (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lucasnate1 ( 4682951 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @02:37AM (#59170468) Homepage

    I already see it today, people that grow up on smartphones and apps since they're children. They don't understand what files are, what copy-paste is, the fact that you can use a computer as a typewriter or as a notepad.

    Instead, the internet and computers are just interactive TVs for them.

    • The metaphors out-paced the originals which inspired them. I remember when I first saw someone sit down at a Windows computer and search for "Solitaire" in a web browser, winding up in a Javascript implementation flanked by advertisements. Paul Levinson calls it anthropotropism: the desire to just interface with the computer as one does with people. We'll optimize toward it, than acclimatize the laggards towards it, and then become possessed forever more by it. Unless something drastic happens. The whole transitionary period was merely an over-convoulted blip of a single generation (you and I) bridging the domain between the physical, meatspace universe and the interactive, television-derived future.

      Unless mass literacy happens. My sig is a clue.

      • It's awful. MS-BOB was a first stab at this concept. These people need to give up. We have tech literacy please please we don't need any more START buttons or "Program\ Files" boy do I ever love 20 years of escaping that space since back in 1995 someone at microsoft wanted people to feel like their programs live in the start menu and keep their stuff somewhere else.

    • I already see it today, people that grow up on smartphones and apps since they're children. They don't understand what files are, what copy-paste is, the fact that you can use a computer as a typewriter or as a notepad.

      Instead, the internet and computers are just interactive TVs for them.

      That doesn't mean they can't learn in the future.

      Instead, the internet and computers are just interactive TVs for them.

      Yep, all the parents who go around constantly saying their kids are geniuses because they can use a smartphone better than them are dead wrong. It's no more skillful than watching TV.

      • Re:It will make them computer illiterate (Score:5, Interesting)

        by nukenerd ( 172703 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @05:03AM (#59170606)

        I already see it today, people that grow up on smartphones and apps ... don't understand what files are, what copy-paste is, the fact that you can use a computer as a typewriter or as a notepad.

        That doesn't mean they can't learn in the future.

        There will always be people who understand files, copy/paste, and can type a document or code. It is just that they will be a small minority of professionals, and invisible behind the scenes as far as the majority are concerned. They will be the Morlocks in a world of Eloi.

        • There will always be people who understand files, copy/paste, and can type a document or code. It is just that they will be a small minority of professionals, and invisible behind the scenes as far as the majority are concerned.

          Yep. Just like there is a small minority of people who know how to cut down a tree without dropping it on your house (I think I can, and would be willing to have a go at it - at YOUR house). Or can operate a locomotive. Or fly a plane.

          And why should everyone know the inner workin

          • Knowing what are files and directories is not knowing the inner working of a computer just like knowing how to read and write is not knowing how to be a writer. We, as a society, still have some knowledge that we consider to be basic. IMHO, knowing that a computer can store files for later use, or that a computer can copy information, is such basic knowledge.

            • IMHO, knowing that a computer can store files for later use, or that a computer can copy information, is such basic knowledge.

              For you, for them it doesn't matter. For most people a car is something a key fits into and they can move around in. Should they be required to know how the internal combustion engine works and how to change the oil and spark plugs etc.
              IMHO, knowing that a car uses petrol in controlled explosions and stores fuel for later use is such basic knowledge.
              IMHO, knowing how to splint a

              • IMHO if they know enough to do what they want to do then that's good enough for them.

                When I see a kid trying and failing to remember everything in his head while sitting in front of a computer, because he doesn't know how to bring up notepad window, than I know that no, their computer knowledge is not good enough for them.

                I'm being very careful here for my definition of "good enough". But my opinion is that if someone fails to achieve what he wants, and if he had some knowledge, he could achieve it, then it means that his knowledge is not enough.

          • Not quite the analogue I'd have used. It's more like how the average car owner is no longer capable of fixing a broken v-belt or even change a tyre because these things no longer break regularely. As a computer user, even after Win95 came along, dropping to the CLI to fix some snag in the system was pretty common and something you at least had to be able to do with someone on the phone guiding you on. I'd dare to say that quite a few computer users today couldn't even find the CLI on their Win10 anymore.

            As

            • I disagree that âoebelts rarely break.â Maybe theyâ(TM)re better today, but the problem is that cars have become too complex for the average owner to do many repairs to. Cars are assembled by groups of robots, and many of these operations cannot be reversed without specialized tools. And many mechanical systems now have a software component that manufacturers want to treat as a trade secret to make repairs illegal unless performed by a licensed mechanic with manufacturer training.
              • And I disagree, most people don't even own a set of tools. And no I'm not talking about some cheap and nasty Chinese made multi screwdriver thing. I'm talking about a decent set of tools. I was at a girlfriends house and she bought a bread maker online, when it arrived it had an Australian plug on it, not compatible with ours. So I popped up to the local store and bought a plug, when I got back I asked for some basic tools to replace the plug (cutters, wire strippers, a screwdriver) she didn't have ANY

          • I mean, people are free to live in ignorance, but why anyone would willingly to do that is beyond me. I may not be able to land a plane, but I know enough to make an attempt if the situation called for it.

          • If I need to cut down a tree I'd look up how to do it on the internet, maybe if there is a lot on the line I'll even pirate a book on logging. I've seen how it's done before I'll do it myself. I'm positive I won't have a tree falling on my house I've had to figure out more with less in the past and I've seen stupider people pull it off fine.

            My buddy wanted to learn how to fly a plane so he set up a good flight sim and practiced over and over. Then he signed up for some classes and he almost has his licen

      • They can, but they don't have to. And since necessity is the mother of inventions, they won't.

        The ancients among the computer nerds will remember that being a computer nerd did involve having some serious electrotechnics skills. Because more often than not you had to tinker and toy with hardware along with the software. You had to know how to replace some parts in your machine because they did fail and repairing them was a required skill. Mostly because those parts were expensive.

        My generation of nerds, tho

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

        Yep, all the parents who go around constantly saying their kids are geniuses because they can use a smartphone better than them are dead wrong. It's no more skillful than watching TV.

        Well... you're obviously not a genius because you don't seem to understand that "watching TV" doesn't require any user input and thus is fundamentally way different than using a smart phone.

        • Ofcourse it does, it requires switching between channels, which actually is a bit more complicated than scrolling a feed and liking posts.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      And the internet is just Facebook for a lot of people. As soon as they stroll outside Facebook they are totally lost.

      • That's actually very human. To them, the internet is just what they use to get on Facebook. That there is a vast world around it doesn't really matter to them, it's just like they consumed their other media before. They had their channels they watched and didn't even bother to find out whether there's anything else.

        Some people are happy that way. How that's possible is something that's beyond me, but then again, I stopped trying to make sense of humans a long time ago.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

        And the internet is just Facebook for a lot of people. As soon as they stroll outside Facebook they are totally lost.

        Oh dear, cry me a river. I remember when people complained that all the internet was to most people was email and the web. Some things never change.

        • I remember that. Now everything we thought about those people and their effect on the internet has come to pass.

      • And the internet is just Facebook for a lot of people

        What's wrong with that? If it wasn't for Facefoot a lot of people wouldn't have bothered getting on the internet (which could arguably have been a good thing).
        Just because you want to drive a car doesn't mean you should know how to take it apart and put it back together again.
        Can you build a house? You live in one, shouldn't you know how to build one then?
        You "know" the internet is more than Facefoot? Can you build a web page, a web server, a cloud

        • Nothing wrong with what you say if it were just a majority, but not for everyone. When a whole generation can't fix a sink, fix a flat, debug some rat's nest wiring job, etc, etc. Seems like a shift in daily life will occur.

        • Just because you want to drive a car doesn't mean you should know how to take it apart and put it back together again.

          Can you build a house? You live in one, shouldn't you know how to build one then?

          Yeah you should because each of those things has it's own Geek Squad equivalent that's ready to do shoddy overpriced work that you'll keep paying for over and over again.

          It's like life illiteracy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Potor ( 658520 )

      I teach in the humanities at an east coast university, and used to have my students do a presentation based on blogging software. I gave up after a few years, as I simply became tech support, and often for incredibly basic questions, or stuff I considered general knowledge.

      It became clear to me that today's youth are excellent consumers of tech, but are not really interested in how stuff works.

      They just want it to work.

  • I call it the road-rage effect (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lu-darp ( 469705 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @02:58AM (#59170488)

    Our social controls & norms all go out the window when there's no body language, eye contact, and (at least in places like comment sections) you'll probably never meet the other person again. Hardly a "social" medium. :-)

    • I've had a theory for a while that people in the US commuting in cars for long distances each day contributes to a lack of empathy due to isolation from others, and what contact you do have with others is always in some high stress situation, either sitting in traffic, dealing with assholes on the road, or finally in the workplace where people are scrambling over each other's dead bodies to get on top. I think doing this day in and day out can make you view people as obstacles or annoyances instead of a per

    • Re:I call it the road-rage effect (Score:5, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday September 08, 2019 @06:09AM (#59170668) Homepage Journal

      The death of civility corresponds to the failure to educate. Obscenity is the crutch of inarticulate motherfuckers. Left with no cleverer retort than "fuck you, clown!" the average speaker (or Internet participant) is suffering from the inchoate rage of failure to communicate. In frustration, they lash out at what they do not understand like the emotional and intellectual infants that they are.

      I can express myself perfectly well in purely textual communications. People used to do this all the time, in the form of written correspondence. That so many have forgotten how is just one more example of how our educational systems are failing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

        The death of civility corresponds to the failure to educate.

        You? Talking about civility with the way you tend to communicate with people on slashdot? That's laughable.

        • You? Talking about civility with the way you tend to communicate with people on slashdot? That's laughable.

          I give people back what they're giving out, if I feel like it. Only I do a better job than they do. If they don't like it, they can change their output. Sometimes I am tolerant, and give a straight answer even to trolls. Sometimes, I feel free to tell them how I feel about them. But I always seek to do it with style.

          Sometimes I fail at that, too, but nobody's perfect.

      • Obscenity is the crutch of inarticulate motherfuckers. Left with no cleverer retort than "fuck you, clown!" the average speaker (or Internet participant) is suffering from the inchoate rage of failure to communicate. In frustration, they lash out at what they do not understand like the emotional and intellectual infants that they are.

        That really explains the comment section of nearly every Breitbart article.

    • Re:I call it the road-rage effect (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @08:12AM (#59170860)

      It's a bit more than that if you ask me.

      It's never been so easy to join a conversation. Imagine you're sitting down with a bunch of friends over a beer and talk about stuff. Did someone pass by, hear your conversation, sit down and join it? Most likely not. But that's something that can and does happen easily on the internet. Like, say, now. Do I know you? No. Do you know me? I don't think so. Yet we're talking with each other and engaging in a conversation. Well, at least kinda-sorta. You said something, I respond. With the option of you in turn responding to this. Conversation happening.

      The thing is now that you usually form your circle of friends from people that have a similar background, come from a similar upbringing or have similar world views. There's something that unites you. This is not the case on the internet.

      Now, there are certain things that people hold as true. To the point where they basically found their world view on them. Religion being one of them, politics another. Nothing can more easily or quickly raise the anger of a person than showing them that they're wrong in something that they hold dear and is important to them.

      And this is where the internet rage starts. Because if you talk to random people about those subjects, at some point in time someone is bound to come along to not only challenge your beliefs, he might even have really good arguments for why you're wrong.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

      Our social controls & norms all go out the window when there's no body language, eye contact, and (at least in places like comment sections) you'll probably never meet the other person again. Hardly a "social" medium. :-)

      I bet you were born before 1970 too. That's a common complaint that has been coming from the baby boomer camp for decades. If the music's too loud, you're too old.

  • The youth will be raised by online forums like slashdot. I mean, you clearly know this is the perfect place to find out the answer to such profound questions. We are all mature scholars here on the human condition here, right? What could possibly go wrong?

    • There are other philosophers beyond Stallman?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      At least on Slashdot you can still code some HTML.

  • Being honest.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by beheaderaswp ( 549877 ) * on Sunday September 08, 2019 @03:17AM (#59170502)

    Honestly, I'm glad I will not be around to see the post 2000 generations grow old. Not because the current generations are bad. They will do fine. I just don't want to see the same mistakes made again. They seem to be happening over and over with every generation. All generations have their faults.

    My generation was forged by different pressures. We had the fear of nuclear oblivion- which screwed up a lot of people in the short, and sometimes, long term. Drug experimentation... which screwed up a lot of people. We also had really screwed up politics which included bombings, assassinations, and the infiltration of our own home grown political organizations by the government. The AIDS epidemic.

    Things are not much different now. The internet just allows you to argue about it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      We still have the fear of nuclear death, MAD hasn't gone away. We still have the same fucked up politics. AIDS is still here and our garbage health care system means people are still dying from it. But now we have a bunch more pressures like the opoid epidemic, and the climate crisis coming to an actual head, and machine learning letting computers take service jobs needed for unskilled individuals in our work-or-die system.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tomhath ( 637240 )

        But now we have a bunch more pressures like...

        You have some of the same pressures, and some different pressures.

        I grew up when being drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam was a very real possibility.

        I can remember practicing nuclear attack drills when I was in kindergarten (I messed one up once as line leader - instead of leading the class into the hall to crouch down away from the windows, I did a fire drill and led everyone outside...that made the teacher chuckle).

        My parents went through the Great Depression. My grandfather's first wife died in the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      Proof we are living in a simulation? Where The technology shifts but the story arch doesn't? There are certainly days...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      The internet does more than just allow people to find each other and argue. The tubes remove friction, not social friction, but friction in a society and economy that prevents things from changing too rapidly. It also removed blocks. In Bahrain, they now have a pissed of pop. because they are mostly Shi'tie run by a bunch of Sunni. That wasn't a political problem (it was an economic problem) until the Shi'ites could use Google Earth and see how the Sunnis lived. Religion had nothing to do with it other than

  • I don't think it's limited to young people. There is no shortage of strong opinions in older folks too.

  • The remasters at least should survive that long. The originals were mixed to VHS so they were way past prime a long time ago.

  • Who the hell knows (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Sunday September 08, 2019 @03:58AM (#59170536) Homepage

    I once hoped that Gen Y -- being deeply familiar with the internet and as a result in constant communication with people around the world and of various cultures and ideas -- would be somehow enlightened. Less afraid of people they don't know and hyper-efficient at collaborating on ideas.

    But media companies have corrupted that vision. By making things destructively addictive, by hyper-optimizing to keep people within their bubble, by using that bubble to manipulate people against their own interests and to be even more afraid of people they don't know.

    Gen Z's future, insofar as how they let the internet shape them, relies on being able to see past the bubble.

    • I once hoped that Gen Y -- being deeply familiar with the internet and as a result in constant communication with people around the world and of various cultures and ideas -- would be somehow enlightened. Less afraid of people they don't know and hyper-efficient at collaborating on ideas.

      Nah, that was low cost airlines that did that.

      People are marrying foreigners at never-seen rates.

      • Discovering cultures (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @05:22AM (#59170622) Homepage

        Nah, that was low cost airlines that did that.
        People are marrying foreigners at never-seen rates.

        cheap airlines, yes.
        And student exchange programs.
        e.g.: I think Erasmus can be considered the best boost to European multiculturalism.

        In an interesting twist of "make love not war", it used to be in historical time that enlisting in the army, marine or foreign legion was the easiest way to see the wrold. Nowadays it seems that trying to bang fellow students in a different country is the new best way.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

          In between Roman Legions and Internet Couch Surfers, you had the hostel generations. They were able to backpack all over Europe cheaply, and although the accommodations were designed to prevent it, they also got up to their fair share of "knowing" the locals.

    • You can give people all the knowledge in the world, but they are still people. People are just not very nice.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      You missed the part where theyve been insulting and denigrating people in the most inhumane ways gaming online since the 90s. Before then, there were some people that did that, I was like maybe 5%. When they started doing this online, everybody started doing it. New people would come into the venue and see everybody else doing it and they started doing it to fit in as well. It really changes your perspective when 90% of the people you interact with are considered subhuman to you. Violence seems to be an

  • I remember it differently (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Sunday September 08, 2019 @04:12AM (#59170554)

    We discussed for hours in a bar what the name of that actor was who played 'Popeye' in 'French Connection' and after we went home, the first one to remember it would call the others in the middle of the night, so that our brains could get some rest and get some sleep.

    Thanks, IMDB.

  • No difference to BBSes except scale (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zarhan ( 415465 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @04:16AM (#59170568)

    I grew up in 80's and 90's too, and I remember those debates in local BBSes and Fidonet-based messaging networks as soon as I got my 1200 bps modem. Religion (well, mostly 'is god real' with atheists vs agnostics vs believers), politics (mostly about whether there's any point in supporting parties supporting environment protection vs. industry), and of course the always present speculations on international relations (essentially: Who'd win different wars, will we have a WW3, and so on).

    I have to say, as a teen trying to establish some sort of self-identity and world-view, it was a really nice place to be. If someone started flaming or went to personal attacks, they were quickly put into place by the admins/moderators. As such, I really don't see today's youth ending up any worse. Talking with their peers and figuring stuff out is part of growing up.

    Anyway, the most gullible people I've witnessed have been in my own age group who didn't spend time "online" until the tech bubble started pushing Internet everywhere - for some reason "random guy on the Internet" was just as believable as BBC news.

    For today's teens, I'm much more optimistic, as they have been exposed to the different echo chambers from day one. They might not be "digital natives" in the sense that they'd know about the code running their phones, but sure as hell they are not believing everything a random guy with a Youtube channel is saying. So, Russian trolls and similar actors have much harder time convincing the younger folks, because they get debunked with funny memes within minutes anyway.

    The kids are all right.

    • I met lots of people i knew from BBSes. Yeah there was Fido but most BBSes weren't on it anyway. So it was different because you might reasonably meet the people you were talking to.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

        By the mid 90s, most boards were sharing FIDOnet feeds with each other locally, while one or two would make calls a couple times a day to the next way station -- in our case, that was Las Vegas. So it took a couple days to get a message from L.A. to Phoenix, as it first had to reach the uplink BBS, then get pushed to Las Vegas, then whenever the Phoenix BBS that acts as their hub checks in, they pull the message and finally forward it to the destination BBS. The whole system was designed to minimize the cha

        • The whole system was designed to minimize the charges accrued, at the cost of simplicity, reliability, and latency.

          And it probably would never have existed if there were a free implementation of UUCP at the time. UUCP dates from 1978 but there was no free implementation until 1991. Formerly scruz.ucsc.edu!deeptht!inkpot!drink here. My node originally ran Xenix 2.3.2 on a 286@6MHz with 1MB RAM and 40MB disk, but I've also run UUPC, Waffle (one of the BBSes which used UUCP) and on other hardware, AmigaUUCP. For a while I did UUCP support for a living.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

            By 1991 it was too late, we knew dial-up BBSing was running out of shelf life. It was slow and not very inclusive, requiring one phone line per concurrent user at the BBS site. A few boards had two lines, most had one. This meant practically all messaging was offline messaging. Toward the end, multi-line BBSes became more of a thing, but they only held out a few years before they were hollowed out by dial-up Internet, over which BBSes could host multiple concurrent users without the expense of multiple line

    • Anyway, the most gullible people I've witnessed have been in my own age group who didn't spend time "online" until the tech bubble started pushing Internet everywhere - for some reason "random guy on the Internet" was just as believable as BBC news.

      Yeah it's interesting. I got online with frequence when my school got an internet connection in the later mid 90s. Maybe '96? Not sure. It was the early days of the graphical web, the machines ran Windows 95 (no security so we did some hilarious hacks for a bit o

    • So, Russian trolls and similar actors have much harder time convincing the younger folks, because they get debunked with funny memes within minutes anyway.

      I suspect this is going to be more accurate than what the original post is proposing.

  • Social Disconnect (Score:3)

    by vix86 ( 592763 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @04:25AM (#59170586)

    I think a big problem with younger Gen Y-ers is that they had no one to help navigate them through what the internet has become, particularly social media. Their parents, who might be Gen X-ers or possibly even Boomers, had no clue about social media and the pitfalls of it. Gen Z-ers and Gen Alpha will have the support of their parents who probably have a better understanding of these facets of the internet.

    The big thing that has me worried is the next computing tech jump. VR and AR probably won't go anywhere, so I don't think there is anything to worry about there. But the birth of the General AI or the advancement of Brain Machine Implants; which could happen in the next 70-80 years, those are things to be worried about. Considering how TV, games, and then the internet/smartphones; seem to have progressively pulled people more and more away from social interaction, I fear what those two tech advances could result in for society as a whole. A GAI in the hands of a company like Google could create a being that is optimally built to be the best friend you never knew you wanted, hell, it could be multiple "BFFs." BMI's, well there is enough cyperpunk fiction around to help illustrate all the ways that could go. Pair a BMI w/ a GAI, who needs a BF/GF, who needs to bother going out, hell we might see interaction on the internet start to die out then as well.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

      hell we might see interaction on the internet start to die out then as well.

      I doubt it. It will just change from you > centralized site > other party to you > your AI > their AI > other party, with or without a centralized site in the middle of it all.

  • It's just that the young now have had a chance to get internet savvy a bit quicker, so take the same debates less seriously - reaching troll levels of boredom more quickly when hanging out in the same place too long without otherwise finding engagement.

    The older retirement-age generation have this same boredom going on too - but they're spinning their wheels with Fox news, after being too bored for more rigorous forms of journalism they grew up with.

    It's not like either of them are unintelligent - but their

    • The older retirement-age generation have this same boredom going on too - but they're spinning their wheels with Fox news, after being too bored for more rigorous forms of journalism they grew up with.

      So why are they watching Fox News, instead of more rigorous forms of journalism?

      • >>So why are they watching Fox News, instead of more rigorous forms of journalism?

        Standard tabloid-style storytelling desires - a comforting narrative, more interesting than the truth - and willing to blend facts in with that narrative, and present third parties outright lying for fun alongside news. Basically pressing pause on more troubling narratives, allowing them to focus on what they've always focused on. They want to avoid change that will challenge the validity of what they've forcused their

  • It will be like TeeVee. Sanitized. No more videos of a man mistakenly trusting a fart in a store for the whole world to see and enjoy.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @05:11AM (#59170614)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • safe space (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday September 08, 2019 @05:13AM (#59170616) Homepage Journal

    "Growing up in the 1980s/90s I don't remember being embroiled in many "heated arguments" with youths my own age."

    They were called fights. I grew up at the same time and i was in bunches of them. I didn't want to be, either, though i threw the first punch a couple of times (out of dozens.) May the administrations of the schools i was in at the time burn in hell forever. Those institutions were training to live in for-profit prisons. One of the schools i went to was literally nicknamed "prison hill", as it was only a small change from the actual name, and it was surrounded by a high fence as the highway (under guise of surface street) goes past it. Elementary penitentiary.

    "And today's youth don't live in little "go to school, then go back home to your parents" cocoons anymore. You can watch them bashing each other over the head on the Internet"

    But in meatspace, college students need to be protected from ideas they find scary. When a speaker comes on campus that they don't like, they need a "safe space" to cry about how abused they are for being exposed to different ideas.

    • They were called fights. I grew up at the same time and i was in bunches of them. I didn't want to be, either, though i threw the first punch a couple of times (out of dozens.)

      Not sure I agree. I mean yes there were fights, but the fights were about ultimately who had the power in the playground. They weren't arguments about the relative (de) merits of the Republicans vs the Democrats or whether global warming is fake and the earth is flat.

      • Re:safe space (Score:4, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday September 08, 2019 @06:35AM (#59170712) Homepage Journal

        So what's changed? Most fights on the internet are about who's smarter, not about who has better facts on their side. I mean, look around. Even this supposedly for-nerds site is absolutely stuffed to bursting with people who willfully ignore facts in an attempt to justify their position. Only in a tiny minority of cases does anyone change their mind due to mere facts. Mostly people take their cues from those they respect. Actually thinking is too much trouble.

        • So what's changed? Most fights on the internet are about who's smarter, not about who has better facts on their side.

          Fair point. I think in some cases people are trying to persuade, but yes a lot is just a willy waving contest. That's the ultimate logical phallusy.

  • They will be generation "owns nothing" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @05:16AM (#59170618)
    The most obvious trend I see is that young people completely do not realize how they make themselves dependent on services that are (only seemingly) provided "for free" or at marginal cost for a while, but entice them to assume these services will be available to them indefinitely - and they react so surprised when they suddenly find those services to be discontinued or only available at outrageous fees.

    Just watched a documentary named "100 Million Views" about people who thought they could make a permanent living out of running their Youtube channels - the amount of naivety on display was just mind-blowing. Not one second they seem to have considered that Youtube is a commercial for-profit company, not some social welfare service.

    • Just watched a documentary named "100 Million Views" about people who thought they could make a permanent living out of running their Youtube channels - the amount of naivety on display was just mind-blowing. Not one second they seem to have considered that Youtube is a commercial for-profit company, not some social welfare service.

      I believe I can make a living by building things for a company, even though the company is a commercial for-profit company not some social welfare service. What these people beli

      • The difference is actors work for an INDUSTRY (entertainment). Youtube creators work for a single CORPORATION. What if Youtube goes away, or changes the rules? It is possible that YT won't be around forever it its current form. It loses tons of money and only exists because Google makes tons of money to cover it, and it fits in their overall business mode.

        • The difference is actors work for an INDUSTRY (entertainment). Youtube creators work for a single CORPORATION.

          I think there's no real difference: people who work on long running series effectively get paid by a single corporation, too.

          What if Youtube goes away, or changes the rules?

          Youtube is the current main thing. However, it's not like there aren't people making good money on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and others too. If youtube goes away or changes, it will be disruptive for a lot of people. It's not g

        • Capitalism abhors a vacuum. The moment YouTube goes away, some other video showing company will pop up and take over.

  • This is 'current gen', not 'next gen' (Score:3)

    by ET3D ( 1169851 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @06:17AM (#59170684)

    We have no idea about adults in 2040 because they internet of that gen doesn't yet exist. We already have adults who grew with arguments on the internet. We also have adults who didn't use the internet in their youth but have argued on the internet for years, including many here on Slashdot.

    What kind of people are they? I think that they are generally the same kind of people. I don't think that the people changed, it's just that the people who enjoy arguing now have a lot more avenues for that, and that the people who enjoy certain things now have access to a lot more people who share their interest, and therefore can discuss that interest more (which sometimes leads to arguments).

    Now, there's definitely a change of attitude in some things, but far as worrying that people are growing used to "Internet combat mode", I'd have to be convinced by stats that it's true. The way I see it, the toxic people online are already jerks in real life, and would have been so without the internet. Sure, they are able to annoy more people online, but causality works that way, not the other way round. On the other hand, nice people are able to provide help and informed opinions online, whereas without the internet they might have been less able to provide positive influence.

  • Are you old enough to remember before the Web? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by shanen ( 462549 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @06:39AM (#59170720) Homepage Journal

    I was just reading The End of Absence which says a lot about this topic. His perspective is that today's kids have no memory of pre-Internet life, and they are organizing their thinking accordingly. In particular, there are lots of things they won't remember because they can always look them up. Today's old fogies (including yours truly) will be the last people to remember the old days.

    From an epistemological perspective, there are two kinds of knowledge. One is what you put in your head, and the other is what you only remember how to find out when you need it. The opponents of Gutenberg also said that printing would destroy the first type of knowledge, since any fool can look in a book.

    By the way, these days I find myself looking up a lot of things as needed. Am I young at heart or just going senile?

  • nudie mags will become obsolete!
  • We're already seeing it with declining rates of religiousness, patriotism and faith in social institutions. When somebody tells you something and it's unsubstantiated you can literally push a button on your phone, ask a question and find out it's B.S.

    Education's big too. I remember getting stuck as a kid on a simple task of basic programming. Just something my brain couldn't wrap around. I didn't have any computer teachers (we had a lab, I'm not that old, but the teachers were useless) and the books at
  • My college graduated sister called me a few weeks ago about some computer help. One step involved downloading a zip file. She had never heard of a zip file before. I was flabbergasted. But that's where the non-computer literate are.

  • Is CleverNickName still around? He would be the one to ask as he was once part of The Next Generation

  • It will make them stupider, just like TV, the printing press and shoes did.

  • Back in the 70s and 80s there were knife fights over not just bands, but even genres.

    If you wore a concert tee, you'd better be willing to fight for it.

    Nowadays folks are much more laid back, you like whatever? Cool, have you seen this vid? There's heavier moderation online in most places, so softer language tends to be used and more exposure to more views has increased tolerance it seems (aside from those who specifically hid in sheltered ideological communities).

    As someone who was active socially before

  • Haven't ever lived among people from other cultures/countries where social & political debate & engagement are stronger? People around the world have very heated/animated discussions about the things they care about. It's the norm. It's only the privileged, isolated classes/cultures that are so fragile about disagreeing with each other. They really need to get out more & live more interesting & engaged lives.

  • Currently we have... (Score:3)

    by andyring ( 100627 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @02:37PM (#59171880) Homepage

    Right now we have "Generation Fight" masquerading as "Generation Tolerance." Take a look at ANY social/political issue and it's always the same. Those who preach "tolerance" are the ones fighting anyone who dares to disagree with them.

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