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America's View of the Internet
Alien54 writes "It won't make you dinner or rub your feet, but nearly one in four Americans say that the Internet can serve as a substitute for a significant other for some period of time, according to a new poll released today by 463 Communications and Zogby International. The poll examined views of what role the Internet plays in people's lives and whether government should play a greater role in regulating it. The online survey was conducted Oct. 4-8, 2007, included 9,743 adult respondents nationwide, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.0 percentage point. From the results blog post: 'More than half of Americans believe that Internet content such as video should be controlled in some way by the government. Only 33% of 18 to 24 year-olds supported government stepping in on content, while 72% of those over 70 years of age support government regulation and ratings. More than one in four Americans has a social networking profile such as MySpace or Facebook. Among 18-24 year-olds, it's almost mandatory - 78% of them report having a social networking profile. Americans may love the Internet, but most are not prepared to implant it into their brain, even if it was safe. Only 11% of respondents said they be willing to safely implant a device that enabled them to use their mind to access the Internet.'"
I'm still waiting for the fucking images to load.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I don't like the idea of anyone sticking tubes in my head. Imagine if they overflowed!
Define "safely".
Why was implanting a device in your brain to control the internet even a question in this survey? Scarier, %11 said they would?!?!
I had absolutely no idea that so many people lived in their basements.
Insert self-referential sig here.
Sure, you can keep in touch with lots of other people online, but when the (typical) user's entire social interaction is reduced to impassioned debates, downloading pr0n, FPS games, pissing off people on the other side of the planet with sophomoric trolling, and the whole time bullshitting about who you are and what you do in RL?
Gah - almost makes one fear for Humanity's future.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Now, ask the same question, but instead substitute "TV programs" for "Internet content". I'll bet you the percentage breakdown doesn't change much.
This isn't about "internet content", it's about what standards a work of art is judged by.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
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50%+ want the internet regulated?
Let me guess.. "for the children"?
I mean it has to be, otherwise they would be condoning censorship of political speech or complete corporate takeover of the internet.
I want to know what happened to parents actually, you know, parenting?!
apparently that only happens in my family.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Why is the always the old guys that are about to die off that enact or get crap passed so that all the rest of us living have to do what they want! If anything, I'd like the vote to be removed from those that retire or above 70 as they are too old and out of date to make decisions for the future. Heck, those under 12 are more likely to make valid decisions for the future since they'll have to live in it.
I can't wait for brain hacking. Imagine the possibilities! It could give a whole new meaning to zombies. "Need more brains to hack..."
LOAD "SIG"
RUN "SIG"
Old people over 70 should not get a voice on just about anything dealing with technology (not at this present time at least). There always is a gap in thinking between young people and old people in most things (especially technology). Older people have a harder time to grasp concepts of all sorts. Show a 70+ year old person programming, or how to make a website, or make something in 3d and they will just look at you funny. Show a 12 year old the same things and they are intrigued. We are also talking about a generation that think porn is wrong, and considering the amount of porn on the interweb...yeah I am sure they want that to have oversight.
Old people in general should not be in high up places (ie. congress, supreme court, company execs.) Just because you are old doesn't make you wiser....it just makes you old with old ways of thinking.
I'm not so sure about the Internet being a reasonable substitute for a significant other. Every time I open my email, the Internet tells me that my penis is too small.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Neither would my ex-wife.
Well, the internet and Rosie Palm.
More than half of Americans believe that Internet content such as video should be controlled in some way by the government.
Well, I'll agree that government should have web sites and portals. They should control their own sites, as I control my own site. So yeah, that's reasonable (depending on how the question was phrased).
Only 33% of 18 to 24 year-olds supported government stepping in on content
Which supports my previous observation, although again they should control their OWN content
while 72% of those over 70 years of age support government regulation and ratings.
That's not unreasonable, either. My dad doesn't even have a computer, has never been on the internet, and considering that, it would not be unreasonable of him to think it reasonable. Even a lot of younger people think the internet is like a TV set, and even the twentysomethings forget that most of the internet is beyond their government's reach.
More than one in four Americans has a social networking profile such as MySpace or Facebook.
Hell, I have a myspace page (that I haven't logged into in a year or two), a web site (that I haven't updated oin almost two years), a K5 account (that I haven't logged into for over 2 years), and a slashdot account and I'm 55. But I don't look my age. Or act it.
Americans may love the Internet, but most are not prepared to implant it into their brain, even if it was safe. Only 11% of respondents said they be willing to safely implant a device that enabled them to use their mind to access the Internet.
Only a total complete idiotic fuckwit moron would have ANYTHING implanted in their brain without an overriding medical reason. If you would have an internet connection implanted in your brain, WTF ARE YOU THINKING? Go ahead, dumbass, and when I crack your connection I'll control you like a meatware robot.
Holy fuck! If brains were dynamite, most people wouldn't have enough to blow their noses.
Note that a far higher percentage than 11% are mentally handicapped. Even retarded people have more sense than that!
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I read stories like this and have to, with a wry grin, shake my head and roll my eyes.
The idea that groups determine with a democratic vote how a society functions is both absurd and an essential part of the American dream. By dream I mean just that - a mythical non-reality created to give hope to people who otherwise would not accept the reality they have.
Repeat after me:
America is not a democracy!
America is not a democracy!
America is not a democracy!
America is a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC. Learn the difference. This means the country has laws first (a Constitution), and the US has a democratic process to elect the people respnsible for upholding and execting the rules of the republic. At no time, and in no way were the opinions of the masses asked for, expected, or accepted in figuring out how the system works - and with good reason: their beliefs were/are easily swayed, grossly under-informed, and as anyone who has tried to decide anything by committee or group: group opinion taking is non-functional.
However, most American dwell in the dream that things in the US are "democratic" - that the way a group, the world, the Internet, or the USA "should" function is that we ask everyone, take a vote, and the highest count wins. Bzzzzt. WRONG. Bad Idea. I see this mentality driving the idea that Zogby should do some poll of the population for what "the people" think the government should do about Internet content. This mentality is extremely wrong, and will get people into a lot of trouble. In America, the answer you get from the masses is directly proportional to what rich, powerful white men craft as messages for the masses to believe.
Strangly, increased capacity for communication will and has made such polling much easier than ever before. It does not make it more valid or more useful in creating policy or a smoothly functioning, successful society.
Aside from the bonehead mentality that we should all vote to determine policy - there is an even simpler issue here. Once one understands how and why this country was formed, and the principles behind it - it becomes obvious that regulating content on huge ditributed computer networks is NOT EVEN CLOSE, not even in the ballpark to what the original intention of the US government was. It is off beyond the outfield, over the green monter, and somewhere off in the bay. It is, in fact, criminal, by all definitions of the term, to distort the function of government so far outside the legal bounds of it's creation.
I am always dismayed, not surprised mind you but dismayed, at the willingness of my fellow American citizens to willingly surrender ever greater powers of control and surveillance even without any clear idea of what is presumably gained by giving up those rights and powers. There are already too many laws, and too much government power, and too much government control and yet people want to give up even more of their independence to the government. The problem is exacerbated, IMHO, by the busy body nature of the religious right, liberal tax and spend left, and generally older people who want the government to run their lives for them and for their neighbor (regardless of what their neighbor wants).
In the 1800's the family dined at the dinner table.
In the 1940's the family dined around the radio.
In the 1960's the family dined around the television.
In the 2000's the family dines around the computer monitor.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Hi, I'm Johnny Cab!"
If they mean online games (or pr0n), then a neural interface would be absolutely awesome.
I'd rather have a female R. Jander Panell than a porn implant. "Jandra" wouldn't need a positronic brain, conventional modern robotics (heated and lubricated of course) would do, controlled by a conventional computer like the one you have in front of you.
As to games, I'd rather have a dedicated building with holographs. You have the advantage of getting a little exersise, too, like with the fuckbot.
However, I am a cyborg, and have been since 2006. I have an implant in my left eyeball, my friend Tom calls me "the six thousand dollar man" because of my bionic eye; click my sig for details. But again, I didn't let them stick a needle in my eye without a damned good reason.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
She reads Slashdot, doesn't she?
Only 11% of respondents said they be willing to safely implant a device that enabled them to use their mind to access the Internet.
Fortunately, this happens to match the exact % of the population whose IQ would be improved by having the Internet implanted in their brains.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I can't tell if that's a reference to Douglas Adams or to masturbation. Hopefully not both.
This survey was conducted online. That means the average surveyee is an internet user to some extent.