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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."
Some people are using the Internet for very serious things--like marriage proposals. Good luck, Mr. & Mrs. Taco!!!
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Internet Use Becomes More Purposeful. That's more like it
So the novelty has worn off to an extent. Now people are looking at what one can actually do with the Net. Art is becoming science, and science is becoming practice. Sounds like a good indicator to me. Of course, we all knew this was going to happen.
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
It's about time Mr. and Ms. Anybody find out that the Net is more than just mp3s and pr0n. Students can use it as research, scientists and other technical jobs can use it as reference... it's a whole well of information out there, so why shouldn't anybody use it?
It has one religious article, that you are free to ignore. THe rest of the reporting is superb - they have their own reporters, so it is refreshingly free from Reuters / AP Newswire rehashes. Often as not, I read the news months before the mainstream press finds it newsworthy. It is great for International issues.
Cheers, Andy!
Andy Rabagliati
Lots of free sites that used to be fun are now making themselves "useful" by charging for subscriptions. :-)
Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
I want to drop her a quick message... but no e-mail to reach her.
Let her know how to get a quick bit of info on something... but no Web.
I have to rack up long distance charges to talk to her: no IM.
Email, the Web, and IM ALONE justify the purchase of a new computer (or even better, a $50 old one) and $20/mo dialup service. I can honestly say that life would be a real pain in the ass without the Net.
dinner: it's what's for beer
Ever since the Dot-Bomb, people are beginning to realize that the internet is not for 'play time'. Sure, you can find more Porn and weblogs here than anywhere else. But increasingly there has been a need for remote access into your companies machines. EMail, E-Signatures, and other electronic anomolies have become legally binding.
But that is not all....
What else could you expect, the internet has grown-down to a commodity internet from an educational network, then grown-sideways to a monopolistic, control-your-lives, all-your-minds-are-belong-to-media internet.
So you see, its all about Theft, Porn, and Work. Welcome to the USA.
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The people originally putting it together in the pre-web days certainly thought it was all about function and not recreation.
Cheers,
Ian
For some reason I was drawn to this. The report has a section on "What people find annoying." Without much suprise, many are stating that Spam is becoming highly problematic. The most annoying of the spam being considered sales solititation. They also have this to say about 'adult' spamming:
We also probed into a particular type of spam that is often cited as an annoyance to Internet users-messages with adult content or from adult Web sites. More than half-56%-of U.S. email users have at one time or another received an email from an adult Web site or that contained adult content. Twenty percent report that this occurs often, with Internet veterans twice as likely as novices to receive such messages (24% for veterans versus 12% for novices). The greater incidence for veterans is likely to be nothing more than a reflection of the number of years they have been online. Their more extensive surfing habits increases the chances that traces of information identifying their email addresses have been picked up by these sites.
One has to wonder if the veteran Internet users are just more likely to look for porn. After all, everyone I met during High School who went on the Internet always followed it up by "You can get free pictures of naked women there!" Well, not everyone, but all of the non-computer geeks at least. Food for thought.
The Section.
I met my wife online a little over 4 years ago. How much more serious than that can you get? What, you're going to die online? Perhaps finding out you got cancer, or that your home town got nuked, or something. I guess that's serious. I dont know about you, but I've been doing serious stuff online for years.
That's right. For instance, now they have spellcheckers online. Unfortunately, some people are still in the dark ages.
How many people out there still have those musty smelling bound dead-tree editions of the encyclopedia sitting on their shelves? Ok...how many would buy a new set?
For most, the internet is their encyclopedia. When I want to know about something, I turn to the internet first (granted not all of the information is good...or decent for that matter).
The point is, the internet will always be both serious and fun. It's a place where we get information about the world , our hobbies, our health and our games.
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
http://www.csmonitor.com/aboutus/about_the_monito
This basically explains that the paper is secular, with the goal of unbiased reporting. It was started by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, in 1908. This was done more or less as a response to the "yellow journalism" of the day (much more about that in the above link). So far it has won six Pulitzer prizes for journalism.
- Topher Cawlfield
Where were you *before" 1996 ?
Internet is a library, an useful one, it helped me to build an Acorn user community by providing news and progs to the others.
It also helped me as a teacher to prepair my computing classes.
Then in 1995 came win95 which brought the internet to the masses, turning it into a supermarket.
Then came everybody else...
And now, you think it "becomes" useful ?
Actually, for who knows what to expect from such a tool it has always been and will always be useful as it is.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Does that mean NOT pissing away hours each day on Slashdot???
Aww, shucks!
You're using her as bait, Master!
I have been online since before there was an online. (do gopher and ftp count?) The Net has always been useful AND fun. Why does there have to be a distinction? I think some of what we used to call fun has for some reason become legitimate
- It used to be cool to be able to see weather radar images, now it is useful
- It used to be cool to go to IMDB and look up your favorite movies - now it is useful
- It used to be fun to chat with people, now it can be essential.
I don't think much has changed, it has just grown. There are more useful things, and there are more fun things. There are more boring things. There is just more.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
First, why do we need studies for this kind of crap? I mean, who can't realize that.
Many people don't realize that the Internet is useful. Many people who are learned are older and subscribe to the print issue of the Christian Science Monitor, and probably don't realize that there is an online version.
My parents are older and have subscribed to the paper for decades--they also happen to be Christian Scientists. They are just starting to get online...they'll most likely read this article but won't say "wow, a study said so," but it'll continue to nudge them into thinking that the Net's useful. I'm sure that many others (including a lot of non Christian Scientists) will be nudged toward believing this, too. The more non-online sources of news saying "it's not just for fun anymore", the more it'll sink in to those not yet online.
Hopefully it'll keep lessening the tech gap, and hopefully it'll bring people like my parents into a better appreciation and understanding of what the heck it is that we all do "out there".
Now I guess I've got to decide whether Slashdot is "useful" or "fun"...
/. features every now and then that were genuinely educational, it'd be more "useful."
Maybe ultimately useful, but I look at slashdot for recreation. It tends to swallow up time, and I end up thinking to myself later, "wish I'd done more with my free time today than read slashdot." So I'd lean toward "fun." YMMV, of course.
Maybe if there were
Just a thought.
one of those paradox things that contradicts itself by simply existing?
sic transit gloria mundi
I met my wife to be on a porno site, now I just need to
get her name and number to finish the deal.
No, the remaining 44% actually subscribe to those emails, they're just too ashamed to admit it :)
My other sig is funny!
but that's what newspapers are for right?
If you rely on other people to tell you about the world around you, they will "manipulate your world view" whether they mean to or not. Most of the time, some aspect of what you're told will be wrong; and you'll never know the difference.
In this respect, there is no difference between the newspaper, tv, slashdot, and your closest and dearest friend. Most people, most of the time, disseminate information that is less than 100% true. All you can do is filter out people doing it deliberately. For bonus points, try to find two sources that agree before you start repeating it.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
How hard would it be to have 'preview' spell check the article for them before the post it? I would like the option for all of my comments too, since I don't guarantee to spell/type perfectly all of them either. Obviously error correction would be optional, but at least suggest corrections, or give the option to spell check before posting stories/articles/comments. I don't imagine this would be an incredibly difficult feature to add.
What?
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.
".sig,
Most people would be cybersquatters in the same group as spammers and others. I'm curious how all the people who agree to not make money through ads or fees are going to survive? You don't see any free print newspapers around without at least 5 pages of ads and personal ads do you?
What?
For most, the internet is their encyclopedia. When I want to know about something, I turn to the internet first (granted not all of the information is good...or decent for that matter).
The thing that gets me is that I find myself doing things on the Internet, that I can't imagine what I would have done before it. And not new and weird things, but disgustingly ordinary things
Case in point: A few months ago I overloaded a wheelbarrow and popped the tire off the rim. Now, I have an air compressor, so I had the means to inflate it. I knew, vaguely, that on tires with no inner tube, you basically just blow it up so that the tire itself seals against the rim. I had no idea how.
I spent 20 minutes trying different methods of inflating, holding the tire, spinning the tire, etc. etc... to no avail. I went to Google, spent <2 minutes searching, and found the solution: wrap a rope or strap around the middle of the tire, squeezing it outward on both sides, THEN pump air. Worked on the first try.
What would I have done 20 years ago? Asked around among my neighbors, probably. Not succeeded. Maybe called some buddies. Probably would have had to drive out to the nearest service station and pay $5 for someone to laugh at me.
So, it isn't neccessarily the Encyclopedic knowledge that amazes me... it is the trivial-yet-useful knowledge that you can find.
No, seriously. The Christian Science Monitor has a very good reputation. The name is not indicitave of the content.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Y?[
? internet is amazingly useful as a research tool, source for patches, drivers, updates... endless amounts of data.
The fact that a site with content fueled by synopsises of and links to the sites that actually contains this points it out is amusing. The fact that the "report" is from the Christian Science Monitor (Christian Science being an oxymoron on a parallel with Military Intelligence)... is fucking hilarious.
Yes, the internet is useful. So are pants. Way to live in the now, scooter.
Ive been on the net since 96, it stopped being fun in about 99.
Basically, when the big internet expansion happened, and it went from being a community of computer genius types, into a commercial business.
The whole fun of the internet was ruined, the same people i used the net to escape from, were now on the net with me.
Now the net is just a tool, like a calculator or telephone.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The net was only fun, when i was new to it. Actually, It was fun until about 1999. It was the net going commercial that ruined the net.
There was an actual culture or cultures to the net, you had chat culture, you had the hacking scene, you had the cracking scene, the gaming scene, and these wernet ordinary people, these were people who were obessessed with this stuff.
Now however, everythings about making money, sure you still have gamers but now its grandma playing quake, or your annoying boss from work, its just not the same anymore.
You still have hacking, but all of the sites are gone, or on places like freenet due to the DMCA.
You still have places like slashdot, but slashdot is one of the last places you can go, to find an intelligent conversation, without slashdot, i wouldnt talk on the net much at all.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
If you will notice... it has changed! Somebody must be reading our little thread.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
Alot of people, didnt get involved with thhe net over 5 years ago like us, alot of people are new to it.
People new to the internet, they are just exploring it, alot of them arent as intelligent as we were, the net is easier to use now.
When we first were introduced to the net, the net was diffrent, sites were made by people like us, usually smart people who werent tryinng to sell us stuff, every other link did not link to a porn site.
There were porn sites and always will be but back then there werent alot of advertisements.
Back then Email was actually useful, before instant messaging, I remember NEEDING email.
Also everyone on the net seemed closer, it was as if there was a community, similar to the Open Source Community
Now look at the net, everythingn is tryingn to sell you something, ads everywhere, theres no more web based chatrooms so theres no real way to meet people, all the sites are about making money so theres no community.
The net was fun for a while, now its just a tool.
I hope freenet is successful, maybe we will have our own internet again
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The internet however was fun back in 1996, each year after 96 it became more and more commercial.
Now its junk.
I mean all these ads, and everythings about money, even slashdot.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I seem to recall a saying about judging books and covers. Applies to newspapers and titles too.
Their religious beliefs don't influence their secular articles.
Considering that I happen to be a citizen of a country whose "founding fathers" talked about the natural rights of mankind and then went home and had their slaves cook dinner I try not to judge the present state of institutions by their founders.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
...er, regarding the wheelbarrow tire. Here's another one:
Imagine that the tire that is "off-the-rim" is the large rear tire of a backhoe - how do you inflate that?
Backyard psycho-mechanic trick:
1. Get some grease and smear it around the bead (will ensure the seal for the next part - it is possible to do it without the grease, but not always successful).
2. Have "attendant" (next door neighbor?) in hand with quick attach tire inflator (attached to large tank shop-style air-compressor) stand by, about 15-20 feet away (or, you could trade spots and have him do the next part). Show him where the tire valve stem is, he will have to be quick...
3. Now, get a can of ether, and spray it into the cavity between the tire and rim (a lil' dab'll do ya!), stand 6 feet away, throw the can off to the side, light a match, and toss it in...
4. If you have done everything right, the ether will combust violently, and "air up" the tire right on the rim instantly - "attendant" holding the inflator then needs to immediately come in and start the inflation with the compressor until the tire is fully inflated.
Is this dangerous? HELL YES. Problems include:
1. Too much ether - tire explodes, sending burning rubber shrapnel everywhere.
2. You miss with the match, and you don't know whether to add more ether (see #1 above) to offset the evaporation, or try again with another match, or both, or wait, or...
3. You get it with the match, tire is aired up - but is it still burning inside the tire when you start inflating (thereby adding more oxygen)... BOOM?
Oh, and for that extra special treat, do the trick at night for a "cool" light show!
BTW - DO NOT TRY THIS TRICK ON AUTOMOBILE TIRES AND RIMS. You WILL probably add too much ether, or the rim won't be able to take the pressure, etc - hell, I am not even sure I should be mentioning any of this, even for tractor tires/rims...
DISCLAIMER: The above is for educational purposes only - use information at your own risk!!!
;)
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
...we all once used the 'net for useful things.
Then a bunch of jesus freaks found out that you could trade pr0n and not make it community business.
Boom, bang... millions of lusers... RealPlayer... mp3... dotCOM explosion...
... the gov't made the Internet purposeful.
The headline should read "Users Become Adults"
Get your Unix fortune now!
Okay, so show me their supposedly secular article that has a 'christian slant' that's so irrational and I'll change my mind. I don't know what the CSM was like originally. I only know what it's like now and that's how I base my judgement.
And unless the CSM is trying to discuss some type of technical issue that they believe conflicts with their beliefs, or they start evangelizing, I really don't see the danger. Think of it as analogous to a judge who refuses to preside over a case because he knows the defendant, but is compentent to preside over other cases. Some people are only irrational or biased on particular issues, but clearheaded on others. In fact, I've found this to be true with most people.
But to answer your question, I wouldn't stand by any racism posited by the 'founding fathers' because racism is (or can be) a threat to people's well being.
An obviously extreme analogy here would be a mental institution that intends to determine whether a person is 'a threat to themselves or others', not whether their view of the world matches those around them.
In relation to the CSM, the question is whether whatever biases the reporters might have is a threat to the integrity of their secular articles. And I've been impressed enough with their reporting that I'll keep believing this until I'm shown reasonable evidence to the contrary.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.