I'm tired of pretending tech makes things better.  I'm tired of kidding myself that all these apps, these chatbots, these "tools" are doing anything but dragging us into the mud and the shit and calling it progress.  I sat down at a cafe a few days ago, hungry and ready
  • friend_of_satan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    21 hours ago

    This era was before smartphones and always-online lifestyle. Being always online is a prerequisite to the attention economy.

    So, yes, you’re right that the best internet was back then. Back when we could leave it at home and go out into the world knowing everybody else had also left it at home.

    Laptops are an obvious exception back then, but almost nobody took their laptop to the bar with them, or to a concert, or on a hike, or to the grocery store. And the trouble of pulling it out and trying to find WiFi meant that it wasn’t easy enough to distract the majority.