Seventy-seven percent 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. As told by a new Harris Poll (via Fast Company), 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.
I agree mostly with this take. There are aspects from that time I’d like to return to, but for the most part, this poll comes across as far too simplified. I do however, think that social media was a massive mistake and has played a major role in the increased division, hostility and hyperpolitical landscape the world now finds itself in, and I’m not sure how we come back from it. I do believe we are far too connected these days, but it isn’t a simple issue.
I personally believe the centralization of social media and the internet in general will be seen as one of the world’s biggest mistakes in the not too distant future, especially once its (already quite apparent) impact on the mental health of the younger generations becomes widely-accepted and acknowledged. I truly wish for an early-00’s internet landscape again, but I know this will never happen.
Well, at least after this crisis ends with some decentralized solution (I hope for Locutus despite its authors’ communicative problems), we’ll leave such mistakes in the past for like 50 years, or so I hope.