Even younger respondents who have never lived in such a world voted in favor of giving it a whirl

Seventy-seven percent of middle-age Americans (35-54 years old) say they want to return to a time before society was “plugged in,” meaning a time before there was widespread internet and cell phone usage. As told by a new Harris Poll (via Fast Company), 63% of younger folks (18-34 years old) were also keen on returning to a pre-plugged-in world, despite that being a world they largely never had a chance to occupy.

  • wxboss@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    (TDLR: Technology (in its infancy) was something new, exciting, fun and enjoyable. Today, it is manifested more as an overlord whose primary capacity is to spy, intrude and take your personal information in order that they might gain from it.)

    I grew up in a world before all of the modern day technology took over. They were good times, but when technology did eventually begin to develop, it effects were initially benign. It was initially adopted by those who were considered ‘geeks’ and people who were willing to spend money on it (even IBM clones such as the Tandy 1000 were going for $1,000 back in the day).

    I remember when pagers were coming on the scene and allowed people to reach out to each other if they weren’t at home or at work (which were the only places they had access to a reachable phone number). It gave greater freedom for those who were in positions where they were on call 24x7 - it allowed them to go places and still be reachable instead of being stuck at home and waiting for a phone call that might never come.

    Of course, things grew from there which provided many other benefits including access to a huge repository of information. Nowadays, that access to information has become a means of harvesting information from the very individual seeking to obtain it. The innocence of what was once revolutionary has been been upended by and ideology that has figured out and embraced how to consume its own consumers.

    I spend more time today figuring out how to keep my data and personal information private and secure. Using Linux on my computer, running GrapheneOS on my phone as well as other considerations all in an attempt to keep at bay invasive companies and their ever evolving techniques in order to pry and spy upon me. It’s a shame that what was once fun and exciting is now something to be feared.

    • StrayCatFrump@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Today, it is manifested more as an overlord whose primary capacity is to spy, intrude and take your personal information in order that they might gain from it.

      In other words, it’s not so much technology that’s the problem, but capitalism.

      • cykablyatbot@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        No, people choose to give up privacy for convenience. I use almost none of the large tech companies. No Google, Facebook, Microsoft, AirBnB, or Apple. I use Amazon once a year or two.
        You don’t need it; people just care more about convenience, just like they choose fast food and processed food over cooking real food.

        • StrayCatFrump@beehaw.orgEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          I use them even less than that. But I’m not sure what your point is. My individual choice to use the services of big tech companies as little as possible has little to no bearing on whether they force themselves onto society, and give many people little choice in whether or not to use them.

          I mean, I also try to get a new phone as rarely as possible, but my ISP requires me to use one—and not just any, but a new model (within the last 2 years) of “smart” phone that their own proprietary app supports—just to change the security settings on my router. And that is the most minimal example of how corporations constrain society to choices that benefit them and not us.