The Internet

[SkyKnight03]

What good things does the Internet bring you? Small or big. There's lots of negativity surrounding social media so I thought this would be fun to talk about another side of the internet. Positive stuff.

I live rural. The nearest store is a 10 minute drive through a long stretch of road. The internet is nice because in my living situation I can't just walk outside the house and see people or do things. But sometimes I still want some form of interaction.

Classes online can save me from an insanely long commute. They aren't always available, but sometimes. I have an hour commute coming up for a class which I'll still need to do in person.

I like being able to stream shows through my computer. Saves me the total awkwardness of running into an explicit scene on a big TV in the living room.

I'm also younger than the internet, so it's always been around for me. I always enjoyed hearing from people who experienced life before it. Any answers are more than welcome though.

 

[Suguri]

I don't have IRL friends, so I've relied on the Internet to connect with people. It's much easier to find others whom I can relate to there. Compare that to my school... I've always had trouble striking up conversations with other students, and in general, I felt pretty out of place because the majority of them are neurotypical. I tried befriending someone like that before, and it went horribly.

But that's not all, though. When I'm not connecting with people I'm usually browsing Wikipedia. There's a lot of cool things to learn about there. I know not everything on there is true, but we have fact-checking websites, don't we?

 

[Seastar]

The main thing: Friends. I don't have friends irl and I don't know what I would even do if I suddenly couldn't contact anyone over the internet. I'm a lot more comfortable with typing instead of speaking, especially with people I don't know.

I guess I have also found many games over the internet. I mostly play on sites where you have virtual pets, but yeah.

There's also of course, many sources of information I wouldn't have had access to without the Internet. Some of it even helped me with figuring out who I am.
Pretty much nobody irl wanted to explain to me about being autistic or what LGBT+ is, for example...
There is also lots of misinformation out there. You just have to be careful and smart about it.

This is similar to the games part, but entertainment in general. I am usually listening to music on YouTube.

 

[Halloqueen]

I've always been a shy, quiet and reserved person, so I've never been good at making friends in real life; most real world friendships throughout my life are because the other person took the initiative. It wasn't until well into adulthood that I developed more charisma and social skills, though I'm still shy. I've always been more comfortable writing things than verbally communicating and I feel that I'm more verbose and eloquent than I ever could be actually speaking aloud. As such, I'm of course more comfortable communicating through text on a screen, whether it be a forum, Discord, whatever. I've met some of, if not the, best friends I've ever had through the Internet and I've known them for well over a decade, approaching two. I met my favorite person in the world, my best friend. I have no idea where I'd be in life without these people. While the Internet is a Pandora's Box, and I sometimes ponder whether humanity is responsible enough for it with all our follies, foibles, and flaws, I'm at least glad that you can meet people you never would have otherwise.

Online shopping has its benefit; I've found nice, cool clothes that you'd never find in regular brick-and-mortar stores. It's convenient to be able to have things shipped to your home or PO Box. I feel like there's a place for both online shopping and brick-and-mortar stores, and don't really like how much that online shopping has overtaken brick-and-mortars, but yeah.

Related to the above, I like being able to track down movies, games, food, etc. that I can't find anywhere locally. I like that my state's library system has a nice online system and can ship things throughout the state and I can pick them up at one of my local locations.

I'm grateful for all the new horizons the Internet opens up for us to explore. All the knowledge, history, music, different perspectives. Disinformation and misinformation are plagues that cause massive harm, but the legitimate information available at our fingertips is wonderful.

Going back to a point I made earlier, the Internet is a double-edged sword. For all its good aspects, it's also dangerous. Identity theft, deepfakes, disinformation and misinformation, the spread of ignorance and hate. I'm glad to exist in a time where the Internet exists, but I wish humanity was more informed, had better critical thinking skills, and could be trusted to better wield this massive responsibility. But that's modern life in general, there are so many reasons that life should be better than it is due to all of the advancements we've made in technology, health care, etc. but we're held back, and too few enjoy the benefits, due to greed and ignorance.

 

[VernalLapin]

The fact that it allows you to basically discover the world at your fingertips. As much as I would love to travel the world more, I'm broke and scared of driving. I want to learn a lot more about pop culture from other countries besides my own, information which feels like it's "locked" like DLC in real life, but the internet is the easiest way to discover it. If that makes sense. I especially love finding older Japanese anime clips, characters, brands, stationery, etc.

It also brings people together to talk about some of the things we don't usually talk about face-to-face. Bit of a weird example but the Backrooms really resonated with me. I learned that so many other people related to that specific sense of nostalgia I got from buzzing yellow lights! It also warms my heart seeing people come together to find lost media (like the source of the original backrooms image, which was found this year!)

TLDR, I really love how you can find obscure things you can't quite easily find IRL. The dying internet makes it hard sometimes, but netizens have proven there is still magic happening.

 

[Croconaw]

Prior to turning eighteen, most of my social interaction came from the internet. I couldn't relate to nearly anyone I went to school with, and having been bullied didn't help my case.

My first online forum experience was for Mario Kart. It's shut down now. It's a bit sad since it was my introduction to online forums. I hate how forums are dying out. Social media is terrible. I've had too many bad experiences with it. It's nice to see TBT still somewhat active!

I love the internet. It introduced me to so many things I love today that I likely wouldn't have otherwise discovered.

 

[Nunnafinga]

I lived in the era before there was an internet.If you wanted to learn something about a particular topic you had to go to the library or own a good set of encyclopedias.What I like about the internet is that I can communicate with people from other parts of the world that would otherwise be unknown to me if not for the internet.

 

[SkyKnight03]

I probably could have thought up a better title for this. Nothing was sticking. I usually try to avoid putting the question inside the first post.

Thank you for everybody who answered anyways.