Slashdot Mirror
Americans Giving Up Social Life for the Web
Stony Stevenson writes "A survey into how the Web affects American adults has found that surfing the net has become an obsession for many, with the majority of U.S. adults feeling they cannot go for a week without going online and one in three giving up friends and sex for the Web. The survey asked 1,011 American adults how long they would feel OK without going on the Web and found that 15 percent said just a day or less, 21 percent said a couple of days and another 19 percent said a few days. It also found that 20 percent said they spend less time having sex because they are online."
I'm not obsessed with reading Slashdot. I just happened to log in here in the middle of the night to get the first post, after having lots of sex.
Alright, I lied. Stroke my ego, mod me funny.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
i find it very relaxing to "unplug" for a while. when i go on vacation there are usually wifi services available, i don't use them even if i do bring my laptop, it distracts from the whole "vacation" part of going on vacation. if i wanted to spend the day reading news and chatting with friends i would save a few hundred bucks and stay HOME to do it.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means
The articles comments about Americans having less sex by being online are misleading as for a large part of the online demographic the only sex they get is watching porn and jerking off so more time spent online is more sex not less sex :)
A survey run at the same time in a sex shop showed that most Americans have not time for the internet because they're having sex.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I thought I noticed some unusual people about lately...
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
Dear Sirs of this fine periodical, I wish to inform you of a social blight that has crept up upon our society! Our investigations reveal that the majority of Americans do not think they could withstand a single week without their radioelectronical talking box! Once of thrice interviews with willing persons revealed that they had neglected good social manners with there friends and even avoided full filling their marital duty in favor of box-communique! What hath God wrought, indeed,Samuel Morse, and what hath God wrought now?
Demented But Determined.
ARE YOU LONELY?
......
(_) Yes
(_) No
(_) Wasn't asked the question because the surveyor assumes the answer is yes.
And people wonder why teen virginity rates are so low. No one has the heart to ask the fat kid.
Eeerie feeling that the population sample for the survey consisted of only Slashdotterz..mmmm.
Finally, vindication!
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
I don't think this should surprise anyone. People feel dependent on mass entertainment and have a difficult time thinking what it would be like without it. It is almost like an addiction. I must admit I feel the same way most of the time. One should also note that people still connect to other people on the internet through messenger services and sites like Facebook, so it is perhaps better than other forms of media like TV or video games.
However, it is relatively easy to break from the cycle. If people force themselves away from their computers and cell phones, it is incredibly easy to get back into social life. I find that times when I visit my family or when I go out hiking/camping, there is no empty void when I am away from technology. People (including myself) stop socializing because it is easier to spend time alone in front of a computer than to entertain others. It becomes surprisingly easy to find ways to socialize when you are bored.
It's funny. I don't mind being without net access at our summer cottage, for example. But if my connection is down at home I quickly get frustrated.
Then again, I need net access for most everyday tasks these days: Banking, bus schedules, general communication, (and soon IPTV service). Network access is quickly becoming like electricity, or running water.
Spending sleepless nights playing WoW on the other hand, is a whole 'nother ballgame.
.: Max Romantschuk
As a Computer Science student and generally computer person I know that I spend more time online than most of my friends and certainly more than the average American, but I'm not sure about the average slashdotter. On the other hand I've also gone for quite a while without a network connection (on the order of weeks/months) and it's really not as hard as people seem to think it is, although deleting spam when I get back is... For me, using the internet obsessively isn't because I'm 'addicted' to the internet but because most of the time there's just nothing better to do. If I find something more interesting I tend to spend less time online.
Digitivity. Great. Another neologism from the virii/boxen crowd.
I do not know about anybody else, but I am a computer professional and I depend on the Web for my living. I spend a lot of time there. BUT... I would be very hard-pressed to think of any instance where I intentionally gave up significant time with people who I really considered friends for the web. Except when I was working, which is another matter entirely. And if we want to be honest, since I work from home, I would not give up sex for the Web, even when I was working! I have not been getting enough breaks anyway... why would I object?
I think this is another example of a "survey" that found exactly what it wanted to find, and damn the reality...
The articles comments about Americans having less sex by being online are misleading as for a large part of the online demographic the only sex they get is watching porn and jerking off
Porn and sex are not the same thing. As an avid consumer of porn, I can honestly say that you're actually looking at an inverse relationship between the amount of porn viewed and the amount of sex had.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
...it would seem that I am in the minority, considering that due to my lack of friends and/or social acquaintances that I actually spend more time online than I normally would. The wife and I left a close-knit Navy community when we ended our enlistments, and moved to Silicon Valley to take new jobs. Now our closest friends have moved back to the East coast and we both work in a slightly hostile environment where everyone is at least 10 years our senior, or they have kids, or they are just plain unsociable.
So I find that I increasingly spend more time online than I normally would because all of the people I am now remotely close to are on Teamspeak, Ventrillo, various forums, and (ugh) Myspace. Oh, how I wish it were the other way around, but until we have enough money saved up to get the hell out of here and move to someplace far less materialistic and divisive across social boundaries it looks like we are stuck. At least I don't have to worry about getting laid but then again it's harder and harder to get in the mood when you're drowning in depression.
There is simply too much glass..
In a recent survey 99% of the population of OECD countries admitted they would have trouble going for more than a few days without having a conversation, reading the news, watching TV, watching a movie listening to music, making a phone call, reading a book, writing a letter or paying a bill... amongst other things. More following this announcement from out sponsors.
"An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex." -Aldous Huxley
Apparently people are smarter than I thought. Seriously, God forbid anyone chooses to forgo sex or social interaction leading to sex for something they find more interesting. Say, information and knowledge...
Well, I don't know... I think I've been having *more* sex thanks to the Internet. I have some good stuff to offer, but I don't like bars, vying for attention, showing off, or approaching women in public. It's too much hit or miss. OTOH, meeting someone in real life *after* you've already chatted with them and established a mutual curiosity, is a whole lot MORE promising. Besides, I'd rather meet someone nice & interested online, rather than feed the ego or paranoia of women that I don't know much about.
So rather than being a sucker for the cute women sitting next to me in classroom, I prefer to ignore her and make acquaintances online instead. Ignoring one another - it eliminates possibilities for sexual harassment too. I think gratuitous attention, historically afforded by men to women, will become a rarity. Maybe it's for the better of everyone.
It might be sad, but it's true for some of us. It's not flamebait just because you're offended by it.
Alarmism about the net will last until the next big communication technology comes out.
Then we get to hear about how telepathy is destroying our society.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Too bad nobody else besides me, myself and my puter are included. The silicon based life forms are superior anyways. Carbon based is so 1900s.
Calvin: "I can't think of anything I'd rather anticipate than have right away, can you?"
Hobbes: "Death comes to mind..."
Damn right, let's frag!
Funny what people will give up so they can spend all day trying to find friends on the Internet to have sex with.
No true geek would ever give up a chance for sex, just for the Internet. That's because REAL Geeks never (or hardly) get any, and won't pass up the chance.
This is really probably just women using the Internet as an excuse to keep their husbands/significant others at arm's length. "Not tonight Honey, I've gotta Google".
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
"It also found that 20 percent said they spend less time having sex because they are online."
It didn't say they have LESS sex, just that they spend less TIME doing it. Obviously, the Internet has made them more efficient.
Probably has to do with the massive hard-ons they can now achieve thanks to e-mail offers. What a truly wonderful age in which we live!
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
An online survey asked "are you online".
100% answered "yes"...
I was off the net while I was working in Indiana for a month & a half this time last year, I had alot of sex & made alot of friends in that time, but I lost the new friends & the ones I'd gone there with by the time the trip was over, not to mention I'm kinda scared a friend I don't know about is going to knock on my door 20 years from now.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
+1 Sexy
Maybe we'll start seeing sexier posts.
(Friend) (Friend of Sex Partner) (Sex Partner of Foe)
Based on America's adult obesity rate, Sex gave up on these folks long before they gravitated to the Internet. It's all they've got left! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR2007082700884.html
And I solved the sex issue by putting the computer in the bedroom. It worked out even better than expected because of the special USB attachments. And putting the big LCD screen over the bed? Genius, I think.
I just need to figure out a way to deal with the shaky mousework.
It doesn't help much that social networking sites are providing people with web-based social lives instead of *real* social lives. One could argue it's the same thing since people are still engaging with each other - I dunno. What I DO know is that I'm fucking sick to death with MySpace, Facebook and all the new networking sites that keep popping up (I'm looking at you too, Valve).
For haters of such sites, do what I do: spread the love - http://www.cleverlittlepod.com/bugroff.html
slashdot IS socializing, retard.
We had a choice. I can go offline now and have sex. I'm outta here.
When will the sex arrive?
... give up his:
* tools for employment (from pencil and paper to research materials to Rolodex to telephone)
* communication devices (telephone, fax, and the postal mail)
* news (television, newspapers, magazines)
* records (bank accounts, tax statements, etc)
* small business
* entertainment (Barnes & Noble, Solitaire)
I essentially live online during my waking hours, excepting when I'm out at the gym or out with friends. (I'm young and single. If I had a wife and kids there would be a few hours of forced downtime every day.) My job and business requires me to be plugged in just like dad cannot remember how he lived before they invented the cellphone. Could we both cut ourselves off from our attachments? Yes. We're not addicts. But we'd be deeply unhappy and unemployed non-addicts before the end of the week if you made us do it.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
although the more the others give up the more others can have.
http://luminosity.livejournal.com http://www.zazzle.com/unixarcade*
It is that we get set in our ways and fear change. Whatever it is you do on a daily basis is what you are used to. It is not a comforting thought to think about changing that, especially for no reason. This is especially in relation to free time/entertainment. Yes, people who like goofing around on the net will be annoyed if you take that away. Ask a person who loves to watch movies how they'd feel about having their TV taken away, or a person who loves to cycle about having their bike taken away, and so on.
This is especially true in a nice, modern, stable country as thankfully we have a lot of time we can spend on what we like. When all your more basic needs are taken care of, you can spend the rest of your time on entertaining yourself. All that we are seeing is that more people are using computers for entertainment. I'd be willing to bet that TV is still the biggest (last I checked Nielsen said households on average watched more than 4 hours a night) but computers are growing.
Another factor may simply be introverts getting to do more of what they want. America has a bit of a skewed perspective that being extroverted is "good" and "normal" and being introverted is "bad" and "unhealthy". That's really not the case. Some people just thrive on getting to know lots of other people. They love meeting and interacting with any and everyone. Others don't, they are much more reserved and have smaller friends circles. They aren't interested in, or comfortable with, trying to meet every person that comes along.
Well as far as all the psychological research I've ever read has been able to determine, there's nothing better or worse about either state. It is just different. Introverts don't need to be forced to try and socialize with everyone, extroverts don't need to be forced to sit alone and not talk to anyone. People need to be able to do what makes them happy. There's no reason why one person can't be happy spending most of their time alone or with a small circle of friends while another is happy going to social gatherings and meeting new people every day.
That's quite correct actually, these days I've got more social life in Second Life than in the first one, although even in SL I'm not that sociable. Then I don't think I could say SL is the problem there -- I never had much social life anyway, so overall I think SL added to it rather than replacing.
Apparently everyone else is having less sex so they can spend more time on the internet. The joke is on you JWT! I didn't have any sex to give up in the first place!
I'm shocked that one of the keywords under the article wasn't "Slashdot".
I was on 4chan at my girlfriends house... She came into her room completely naked, and asked me to join her in the bathroom. If any of you are going to turn that down to wade through over 9000 megabytes of furry porn then I hate to say that you have a SERIOUS problem.
SQL programmer goes to a bar. Walks up to two tables and says 'Excuse me, may I join you?'.
Wow! TV and Cable networks should take the 'net to court!
This is /. internet=porn=sexlife
Come on mods, have a sense of humour!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
It was an online survey!
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
If I had a girlfriend (hahaha) I sure as hell wouldn't be hanging around on Slashdot.
Most Americans probably couldn't go a week without driving or using a telephone, either. The Internet is part of our life ecosystem now and a source for information and work. To go from there to drawing grandiose conclusions is to forget the maxim of statistics, correlation doesn't imply causation. If I didn't use the Internet for a week, I wouldn't have a job.
Really, its something big. You get in the net, lots of people from lots of different fields of life, interest areas all here in your instant messenger lists. Pick as you like.
To get that kind of connectivity and interaction level in real life, you need to spend mighty effort in getting to and interacting with people, traveling your butt over.
Its like a juice. its not 'surfing' that pulls us in - its people. Whether behind a monitor screen or not, they are still people and we all know it.
i wouldnt trade it for anything in the world. at least, anything on this world we call earth.
Read radical news here
Where I am it's still true.
;D
I wanted to reply to this thread saying that I would volunter to fill out the lost sex for people who feel that their boyfriend are using Internet to much, I've used it so fucking much that I would even offer to have sex for years without an Internet connection
She'd (yeah, no boys with boyfriends, atleast not atm) had to dump him first thought, I don't wanna mess up my joystick with someone else sticky stuff.
Best. Post. Ever.
"Slashdot - News for nerds, stuff that matters, even more than sex and friends."
The internet is my bookstore, research library, mailbox (letters, anyway), dvd/music store, clothing store, shoestore, toystore, stationery store (fountain pens/ink, moleskine journals), news outlet, travel agent, and god knows what else. People see you "surfing the web" and fail to differentiate between the different activities you're actually engaging in. That's a problem with oversimplification, not with internet use.
Now, if they also will give up invading countries and waging illegal wars for the Web, I'm all for it!
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
The @&*)&*@#( are banning smoking everywhere. Feels too oppressive when I go out anymore. They even have those big brother snitch signs posted at every door.
given the crime increase in my area, it's probably safer for me to be online than out someplace...I'm sick of the punks taking over and the cops doing everything they can only to get no support from judges or mayors by not hiring more cops and not throwing people in jail when they should be...
dB Masters
They didn't survey whether the people could go without internet, they surveyed whether the people felt they couldn't go without internet. Plus it was apparently only of people who already surf the internet enough to bother taking polls. Sometimes people feel they could eat 10 pounds of food, but ofter eating a fraction of that, find they don't really have the appetite. This is kind of like the error new programmers make of ignoring pointer indirection. Oh, here's the real agenda at the end:
Slashdot, porns for nerd, stuff that matters.
I'm a moderately religious Jew. As part of the things that I observe, I don't use the computer on Shabbat (Saturday) or on any Jewish Holiday. Although I may miss it slightly by the end of some of the 3 day stretches (like last week's 2 days of Rosh Hashana + 1 day of Shabbat), I find that I like the downtime to spend more time with my family. Religious or not, I think it's a good idea to dedicate at least one day to non-online tasks and spend time with your parents/significant others/spouses/children (whichever pertain to your particular situation). Don't have any parents, significant others, spouses, or children? Well, spend the day with some friends (offline) or meeting with someone of the opposite sex (or same sex if that's what you prefer). The Internet is great, but don't let it consume your life.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
This is one of the big problems with most people. Don't take this as offensive it is not your fault at all, it is the fault of the media conglomerates and the capitalist ethic worldwide.
Your situation, in which you have a "real job", is probably more complicated than just that, even those people with real jobs can just up and walk away provided they have certain other obligations they haven't undertaken. Let us take a look at two potential life paths.
One:
High-School, University and a part time job, "real job" to pay off student loans, car loan (because you need a nice new car to go with your job), credit card, credit card bills after you have bought that plasma TV (on special!!!), house loan with payments that you will have for the next 50 years.
With this particular plan you are never out from under debt or other long term commitments, you can't take 6 months off because that would mean missing credit card payments, car payments and house payments. This is the average Joe choice; this is the bane of smart people everywhere who haven't got a grasp on money. They start this job out of University (55k a year! wow, that's so much money!) then they start spending, they earn a little more, they spend a little more, they never clear their debts. This person, these people in fact, are everywhere
Two:
High-School, University, 6 Months overseas on a working holiday, real job, paying off student loans and credit card from trip overseas, rent a property, don't buy too much junk, travel once a year till you are ready to give up your real job for a few months to do some real travelling or just settle down and get that new car (no one really cares if you have been driving that rust bucket since you were 17) the house and settle into the life everyone else is already stuck in if you want to.
Those student loans alone will be ok for you to travel with hanging over your head so long as you don't add a credit card and the rest to them. I am in the "Real job" stage of this plan, I spent 6 months working in Canada, I am about to go on a few weeks backpacking trip through SE Asia. When I get tired of this job, I will drive my rust bucket home to the place I rent and pack all my stuff up, drive it to my parents house and leave it under a tarp till I get back from wherever I end up.
These are choices you can make, they aren't the only choice, but they are always a choice. Buying a home ties you to it for a long time, a credit card debt is something you can't escape. I'm not preaching that my way is the only way, or that it is the way for you. I am just making the point that a "real job" isn't what is stopping you from jetting off for 6 months, it's your personal life-cruft that is doing it.
(I live in Australia where tertiary education debt is all government based and repayable on a "when you earn enough" basis, ymmv in US. Also, my real job is as a C# Developer)
Can't we all just get along
while they silcone forms may be superior
http://realdoll.com/faq.asp#silicone
they aren't life!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Sheesh!
1011 isn't that big of a number!
01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110111 01100101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101111 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110010 01100100 00101110
Spork.
P.S. Spork.
Seriously, instead of pen pals, or going out and getting falling-down, puking-your-guts-out drunk for "fun", people are interacting on the net?
While there IS some face-to-face contact lost there, I just fail to grasp how this isn't social?
Sure, the perv in his basement whacking to japanese schoolgirl bukakke could probably be doing something more social. But participating in chat rooms, message boards, online multiplayer games, etc?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I like how the article doesn't tell us anything about the survey --- how it was conducted, who was surveyd, who conducted it, etc. While I don't doubt that many of the results ring true, it seems like it would be a good idea to mention, in the article, that the survey was conducted via by a survey group, by land-line phone calls, or on the street, or whatever.
"LOL! 80% of 1,000 AOL users surveyed by AOLIM user kewtie_2007 said that the internet is, quote, HIGHLY IMPORTANT.
I mean, isn't that a standard practice for surveys anyway? And, show of hands, how many of us have taken an online survey in the past year? Ok, how many of us have taken an anonymous, on the street/over the phone survey in the past year?
Anyway.
That one of the biggest technological and social revolutions of our lifetime is being used by the majority of the population in a habitual manner? So what? I'm pretty sure that movies, TV, recorded music, etc do the same thing. And the internet isn't just a way to waste time in an introverted manner either; a lot of people need to check email/Facebook/etc. to get messages about important things that might be time sensitive. So if someone can't go for more than a few days without checking their "vitals" it doesn't make them a loser, it makes them someone who is going into the 21st century realm of communication without kicking and screaming. Pretty much everything school, job and social related can be tied back to the internet in at least a few ways, and so these worthless "studies" need to stop trying to prove some high-horse opinion that we need the internet. Anyone could have told us that the internet is extremely important in this day and age for a LOT of reasons, and they wouldn't have had to make it seem like such a bad thing.
Our youth culture has shifted from "Sex, Drugs, & Rock'n Roll" to "Porn Sites, Blogs, & Forums". Yeah, that's about right.
It seems correct, almost makes me want to side with "Sir" Elton John. We only need to remember the interent is only information...not life...
I tend to think the reason for your observations is that geeks are used to this life. We've been surfing the web since before most people had a good reason to own a personal computer; we're not over impressed with our ability to send an IM to a buddy while sitting in a dark movie theater.
From my experience, a lot of the people who spend more time sending text messages or hanging out on social networks are people that were perfectly social before it was all taken online. With the addition tech out there, they think that they are expanding on their social capabilities. Problem is, they are really NOT doing that and, in some cases, they are being more anti-social.
This is going to come full circle some day. Eventually people are going to realize that all the great tech they've relied on to do this cool crap was actually only stymieing their social lives. I mean, really, if you are sending 50 text messages to someone, you either fail to grasp that there is an easier way (talk to the person) or you are doing it at a time when you shouldn't be anyway (in which case you'll eventually be punished). I await the days when a cell phone becomes a phone again rather than a device for doing everything except communicating when necessary.
You're right. Today wasn't that long ago for me.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
which leads to three months off between contracts while you collect unemployment compensation.
would it be too much to ask that before posting a sory like this a Geek give some passing thought to the construction and testing of a valid statistical model?
I can tell you that I spend more time online BECAUSE I am getting less sex.....not the other way around.
-ted
Can't wait for the "But, but, Second Life is social life!!!" nonsense to start.
sic transit gloria mundi
Hey, the web is great, but you just have to remember its purpose: finding people to have sex with.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
for the MTV generation. "Old Fashioned" relationships have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And they require an effort. MTV relationships are like the bubbles in Diet Coke: bright, small, and quickly gone. Relationship go sour? Just open a new account with a new handle! No messy "reputation" to consider.
/., aren't I?
Yes. I am an old fart. And just as guilty, believe me. I'm posting to
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
Liked your post. Do it but don't forget "A few weeks is generally enough for me, I like my cushy homebase." Good for you. Change is as good as a rest. But it ain't as good as the rest you get when you win your way back to that "cushy homebase."
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
Whoops. My mistake. It was 20% of the respondents rather than 20% less sex. Got to read more carefully.
... see:
http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/09/bloggers-social.html
Bye,
Oliver
I chuckled the other night when we had our "date night", and we both ended up staying in and playing around on the Internet in separate rooms on our separate computers for the night.
:)
We even had a little 15-minute IM conversation about something.
But then hey, we met online.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
I've been on the Internet for about fourteen years and I'm a website & software developer so I spend my work hours glued to the web. On weekends and holidays I usually don't use the Internet much. I haven't seen anything compelling enough in recent years to really make me want to use the Internet when I could be spending time with my wife, spending tim outdoors, or just reading a book.
On the other hand I really feel like I can't work without Internet access. It's became a part of my brain functionality. When I remember things I usually only remember an outline and how to find the details as needed. If I can't hit the web and instantly pull information from Google and Wikipedia then I feel disabled. The Internet really has changed the way I remember and think - when I as young I would memorize book after book in full detail but as the Internet and the web began to appear and become useful information resources I gradually changed to using my memory only as an index.
So, I guess I like to not have to use the Internet but I like to have it available, instantly, when I want it. If it was available I'd buy a chip to implant in my head that'd give me constant access but I'd mostly make short informational requests on an as-needed basis rather than sitting there jacked in all the time.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
But due to the health issues of Americans, they're not always the easiest to look at, nor they have the more engaging attitudes. Hence I choose the Net.
Now if I was in Paris, France (Montreal is closer...), the article would have a different story.
I want to give up the web and time online in order to get out there and meet girls. Hell, if I had a choice...sex or web...I'd choose sex each and every time.