The Internet Is Pretty Cool

[Madame Adequate]

Most traditional communications media including telephone, music, film, and television are being reshaped or redefined by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet Protocol television (IPTV). Newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging and web feeds. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of human interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Online shopping has boomed both for major retail outlets and small artisans and traders. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries.

We all use the Internet to a greater or lesser extent (probably greater because we're posting nerdy stuff about our nerdy video games like big fat nerds), but how has the Internet affected you, personally? Has it had much of an effect, or has it been fairly unimportant?

For me, it's provided me with a couple of girlfriends and now my fiancee, so some very important relationships relied on it. I've made friends around the world, and I'd like to think my exposure to a broader section of humankind has helped me be a better person. Obviously I can access just about any media imaginable in one form or another, and the number of things I couldn't access within about an hour are tiny, mostly really big videogames. That's... remarkable, when you sit and think about it. Truly remarkable. Right now I'm posting on this forum, reading Wikipedia, I've got a Cracked article in another tab, I'm listening to Spotify, I'm talking to Pike on IMs, and idly playing a digitally distributed videogame. Now granted, I could have done most of these in one form or another without it, but this is all in a couple of windows on a single device.

[Pumpkin]

My current boyfriend of 3 years is the result of this forum so I'm gonna say good things. I use the Internet daily

What I dislike is that the Internet has made everyone want online applications, whereas I prefer to hand in an application in person and speak to the hiring peeps

[Sephex]

For me, it's provided me with a couple of girlfriends and now my fiancee...

Jesus man, you're not supposed to talk about your side girls in public!

As for a more serious reply, I can't really put it better than you can or do anything other than elaborate more on my personal tastes. I remember ages ago when I first encountered the internet thinking that it was going to grow and change the world drastically. Seems like a boring prediction today, but I remember a lot of people saying it was a fad and was the modern CB radio.

[Electroshock Therapy]

What's an internet?









It's basically provided me with entertainment when I'm not destroying my back at work or destroying my brain in college. Nothing too life-changing really. I'm almost thinking about trying an online dating site, but I don't really have the money to pay for it (like I said, college student. What money? :lol:) and I have a feeling free dating sites have more sketchy characters.

[Madame Adequate]

For me, it's provided me with a couple of girlfriends and now my fiancee...

Jesus man, you're not supposed to talk about your side girls in public!


Nah, Pike already knows about them. It's my side boys I need to keep quiet.

[Crop]

Free games, free TV, free music and free movies mostly.

[The Man]

It's provided me with countless entertainment, not to mention the ability to stream nearly any movies and TV I want plus tons of free music and the resultant discovery of nearly every album I've bought in the past ten years. Oh, and basically every relationship I've ever had or am likely to have resulted in some way or other internet. On the other hand it's also provided me with a lot of time wasted on frivolous pursuits that could have been better spent on advancing my career or fixing politics or something. So it's a mixed bag.

[Sephex]

For me, it's provided me with a couple of girlfriends and now my fiancee...

Jesus man, you're not supposed to talk about your side girls in public!


Nah, Pike already knows about them. It's my side boys I need to keep quiet.

http://giant.gfycat.com/TameMediumKingsnake.gif

[Ayen]

The internet is responsible for me no longer parroting my church and learning how to think for myself, and it's where most of my friends are, so... the internet has been pretty great to me.

[Iceglow]

For me, it's provided me with a couple of girlfriends and now my fiancee...

Jesus man, you're not supposed to talk about your side girls in public!


Nah, Pike already knows about them. It's my side boys I need to keep quiet.

You said you would maintain confidentiality dude. Jesus why did you go and have to say something! Now I'll have to explain to Paul that you're just a bit on the side and mean nothing to me, like all those women he hates!

[balloon]

When I was ~9 I used to download AMV's. That's the only positive I can think of, and negative thinking is not allowed. Negative thinking will get your ass kicked.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYSKpfgIwzs

sick...

[Spooniest]

The Internet has been responsible for much of the education I have undertaken since the end of high school. I attended college for a few sporadic semesters, but a lot of the more complex knowledge I have comes from Internet research.

I sill prefer books though cuz the smell of ink and paper is nostalgic to me

[Shlup]

My current boyfriend of 3 years is the result of this forum so I'm gonna say good things. I use the Internet daily

What I dislike is that the Internet has made everyone want online applications, whereas I prefer to hand in an application in person and speak to the hiring peeps

Before I got my current job, after no results for several months with applying for jobs online, I decided to go around handing out my resume to local day care centers... People looked at me like I had lost my mind.

[Sephex]

My current boyfriend of 3 years is the result of this forum so I'm gonna say good things. I use the Internet daily

What I dislike is that the Internet has made everyone want online applications, whereas I prefer to hand in an application in person and speak to the hiring peeps

Before I got my current job, after no results for several months with applying for jobs online, I decided to go around handing out my resume to local day care centers... People looked at me like I had lost my mind.

Though I never had to deal with this personally, but I have seen this in action, it kills me that older people think "yer on the computor all day not applyin fer them REAL jobs." If one tries to explain to them that it isn't the 70s anymore, and you can't just barge into places and demand a job, you are a lazy slacker that wants the whole world handed to you. "Work hard and you'll get rewarded."

****ing blow me. No, I'm not bitter.

[Mirage]

If it wasn't for the invention of the microchip, I would have said the Internet is the best and most important invention since the telegraph itself.

[Mirage]

****ing blow me. No, I'm not bitter.
Don't worry, we're all exactly as not bitter as you are.

[Loony BoB]

EoFF alone has dictated much of my life. Beyond that, not so sure. It's certainly allowed me to be more up to date with what is going on with the world.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

If it wasn't for the invention of the microchip, I would have said the Internet is the best and most important invention since the telegraph itself.

We've come a long way since sliced bread.

[Pike]

One of my jobs is done via the internet. Making money is pretty cool.

[MissH]

Yep, like many people here, Bubba and I met online. In fact our first date was 2 years and 3 months ago today exactly! Back then I wouldn't have guessed that we'd be here now- engaged,buying a house and having a baby! Crazy stuff!

I love the internet. Yes, I'm probably a bit addicted to Twitter and Facebook and such. I love having so much knowledge at my fingertips and knowing I can type a few words into google and all the answers I need are just there! Ofcourse this can backfire somewhat when you become your own doctor and start typing symptoms into google and diagnose yourself with all kind of dreadful, life-threatening diseases!

But all in all- the internet is great!

[Freya]

I'm addicted to it. Very addicted. So yeah it's the bees knees.

[escobert]

Its cool. I like to waste time on it
for the most part it just makes me hate more than I'd like though.

[Pumpkin]

My current boyfriend of 3 years is the result of this forum so I'm gonna say good things. I use the Internet daily

What I dislike is that the Internet has made everyone want online applications, whereas I prefer to hand in an application in person and speak to the hiring peeps

Before I got my current job, after no results for several months with applying for jobs online, I decided to go around handing out my resume to local day care centers... People looked at me like I had lost my mind.

Though I never had to deal with this personally, but I have seen this in action, it kills me that older people think "yer on the computor all day not applyin fer them REAL jobs." If one tries to explain to them that it isn't the 70s anymore, and you can't just barge into places and demand a job, you are a lazy slacker that wants the whole world handed to you. "Work hard and you'll get rewarded."

****ing blow me. No, I'm not bitter.

I've literally tried handing in applications in person. They all and say "go online". It's annoying. They give you like 40 minute long applications to fill out of stuff you already have ON YOUR RESUME and then it takes forever for the person to see it and its in there with like a million others

It's just made getting jobs harder in general, I find. It's good if you want something long distance because you're moving soon or something, otherwise it's just a pain

[Madame Adequate]

I've tried handing in applications offline and I get looked at like I've got two heads. And this was several years ago now.

[Tigmafuzz]

how has the Internet affected you, personally? Has it had much of an effect, or has it been fairly unimportant?


4chan, Newgrounds, SomethingAwful, YTMND, and GameFAQs LUE probably had a bigger effect on my upbringing than anyone I had ever met in real life outside of tragic events. I changed drastically in just a few months, being introduced to all these new ideas and crazy personalities immediately after a life without internet. Mostly 4chan. It was an intense and fascinating time for me. The internet was also my introduction to many other concepts that had a big impact and my experiences with them are held very dear to me. The internet introduced me to anime and manga, and otaku culture. The internet introduced me to flash animation, and the entire subculture resulting from it. It allowed me to see other parts of the world, and how different things were. It expanded my view of the world in every way possible.

The internet allowed me to study. I had a vast wealth of information at my fingertips. It allowed to delve into philosophy, epistemology, astronomy (which at the time I thought was the same as cosmology), ethics and logic, metaphysical sciences, music theory, architecture, electrical engineering, computer science and programming, carpentry, all sorts of literature, and gave me the opportunity to familiarize myself with other languages and cultures, all of which I made an effort to use to their full advantage in the time I had. I was interested in everything, and wanted to make myself into a human library.

I saw badgers and mushrooms. I saw 3D dancing babies, dancing hamsters, and even a dancing banana. I saw demotivational pictures. I saw animutations and magical puppets. I saw Homestar Runner and Joe Cartoons. I saw a band consisting of people who may or may not be giants. I saw a lot of people failing at things, one of whom had an afro and nunchaku. I saw a man wearing a homemade Tron costume. I saw a fat Chinese kid's face edited over the Mona Lisa. I saw a lot of pictures of a certain Sesame Street character in some incriminating scenes. I saw people speaking with numbers in place of letters. I saw many, MANY people being compared to Hitler.

The internet introduced me to many hobbies I still enjoy to this day. Origami, gigantic LEGO sculptures, model planes, etc. It showed me drawing and painting techniques that I may not have been able to learn for years otherwise, and as a result got to practice them longer. Likewise for martial arts.

Some of the things I saw in my early days on the internet influence who I am to this very day. It showed me absolutely terrible things that happen all over the world, and just how many horrible people there really are in the world. It also taught me how to accept all the good and bad things that happen to myself and others as circumstance, how to help others when their circumstances require it, and how to get past my own circumstances and look to the future.

The internet taught me how2meme and how2satire. It brought me closer together with those who shared similar ideals, similar interests, or similar tastes in humor, regardless of how different we may be otherwise.


The internet taught me I'm special, and also that I'm exactly the same as everyone else.

[Shiny]

I thought the internet was pretty cool until I discovered 4chan.

[Jessweeee♪]

I thank the internet for my mental health being mostly ok. I'm a super creepy hermit lady and before the internet became a mainstream thing people like me just got weirder and weirder as they spent more time alone and then they get flack for being weird so they spent even more time alone until there was basically no hope of having any "normal" interaction with another human being. I'm still pretty just all wrong but now that doesn't actually have to be a bad thing all the time. I feel like the internet has made people more accepting of weirdness.

[G13]

I lost 400 pounds in 30 seconds. Thanks, Internet!

[Loony BoB]

I lost 400 pounds in 30 seconds. Thanks, Internet!
Didn't know you were dealing in British currency!

[Del Murder]

This is a nice community and I met my wife here so that alone had a profound impact on my life. Other than that, I probably don't visit 'websites' or participate in the internet culture all that much but in terms of buying things (Amazon, eBay, etc.) and communicating with people (Gmail), the internet is an integrated part of my every day life.

To truly understand how connected you are, try going without internet for an otherwise 'normal' week. I bet most of us could do without their EoFF, Facebook, Wikipedia, or other surfing sites, but could you go a week without email? GPS navigation? Looking up every small problem you come across?

[Calliope]

I'd be fine without GPS, streaming services, Google, and social media. I would miss email though, and as I'm studying online, I guess the outage would be like one big snow day!

[Mirage]

You don't need internet for GPS. In fact, most dedicated GPS devices do not use the internet.

[Shiny]

Most good navigation apps like Waze use LTE or 3G which is basically internet.

[Mirage]

I know that navigation apps for phones access the internet over the phone's mobile data capabilities in order to download maps and offer additional positional data.

That's got nothing to do with dedicated GPS navigation devices though :)

[Del Murder]

Yeah and you don't need the internet to look up a good Thai restaurant since you can use the phone book but nobody has those anymore either.

[Spuuky]

It would be impossible for me to do my job without the Internet, so it would be very hard for me to go a week without it. But, in my personal life, it would be very easy, if for some reason I wanted to (which I don't).