Internet Use Becomes More Purposeful

tacocat writes "An article in the The Christian Science Monitor talks about the changing use of the Internet. They cite a report from The Pew Internet and American Life Project that talks about people Getting Serious Online. The study is continuation of people they have been following already and found that people are using the Internet more often for serious matters and issue of utility, rather then just for fun."

Comments

Yes

[Zen Mastuh]

Some people are using the Internet for very serious things--like marriage proposals. Good luck, Mr. & Mrs. Taco!!!

normal article..or katz?

[I Want GNU!]

At first I thought this article was a JonKatz article about how the Internet was useful, and I was surprised to find it wasn't. His article would go:

Since 1912, the Internet has been very useful. What started as a way of putting together fishing nets in an "inter" way became a key method of transferring "data." Data is 1's and 0's. I'm not 1's and 0's. Internet useful because it lets you get your Slash for your dot. I'm the dot in dot com. No that's Intel. In concluision, what the "Intra-net" is no one knows, but one day scientists hope to figure it out. If that is, it doesn't violate the DMCA, because the DMCA says you can't use crack, and scientists want to "crack" the problem.

And to end with a Homer J. Simpson quote: "(Wow), they have the Internet on computers now?"

Purposful?

[blues5150]

Internet Use Becomes More Purposeful. That's more like it

Re:Purposful?

[ichimunki]

You want to know what's scariest? I've never before in life had trouble with any of the prevalent grammar/spelling errors that abound on Slashdot. But thanks to reading the articles here and the comments below, I've begun to pick them up. Whereas previously my most serious problem was whether or not to put an apostrophe in "its", now I find myself frequently confusing their/there, etc. This intellectual failing may be contagious!

In other news...

[distributed.karma]

Spell checker becomes more purposful.

Yep, I've seen this...

[thelenm]

Lots of free sites that used to be fun are now making themselves "useful" by charging for subscriptions. :-)

In the long-distant past...

[Soft]

Normally I don't just post jokes all day long, but this one's too good, it exactly matches #2 of Why Usenet is Like a Penis:

In the long-distant past, its only purpose was to transmit information considered vital to the survival of the species. Some people still think that's the only thing it should be used for, but most folks today use it for fun most of the time.

... and the survey is from the Christian Science monitor, even better!

I know!

[PhysicsGenius]

Internet Use Becomes More Purposful

That's right. For instance, now they have spellcheckers online. Unfortunately, some people are still in the dark ages.

Re:Serious?

[sinserve]

I met my wife to be on a porno site, now I just need to
get her name and number to finish the deal.

Re:Serious?

[CoffeeNowDammit]

Not to gloat, but I have you beat: my future wife and I accentuated our dating through the Internet eleven years ago.

We were grad students in a university CS department, and relied quite a bit on good ol' Unix talk. One such exchange went something like this:

Her: Hey, how's it going?

Me: Not bad; I'm tru^Hying to get tj^Hhis packet sniffer worl^Hking on this DOF^HS box.

But the bav^Hckspacr^He key on this tern^Hmim^Hnal is messed up..

Her: asdf[four correct backspaces]asdf[four correct backspaces, pattern repeats for a bit...]

Me: WELL, FIM^HNE! RUB IT IM^HN WHY DON"^H'T YOU!

Neither of us has used Internet messaging; I guess we're secretly pining for good ol' talk.