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How has the internet changed you as a person?
sittered
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Personally, when I joined my first forum five years ago (at age 13), I was not quite ready for the less than sunshiny dispositions of some of the posters.
Today I am 18, and I am definitely
A. more thick-skinned when it comes to criticism
B. more careful to think about what I say and write
C. less "OMG CHEEZ IS FUNNY LOLOLOLOL"
D. better at sandwiching my complete ideas between capitalized letters and periods.
I am especially proud of C.
I'm not saying only forums affect people, but forums are the places where people interact more often than not.
Thoughts, D&D?
Today I am 18, and I am definitely
A. more thick-skinned when it comes to criticism
B. more careful to think about what I say and write
C. less "OMG CHEEZ IS FUNNY LOLOLOLOL"
D. better at sandwiching my complete ideas between capitalized letters and periods.
I am especially proud of C.
I'm not saying only forums affect people, but forums are the places where people interact more often than not.
Thoughts, D&D?
sittered on
0
Posts
Y'know...
I think that its been exactly the same for me, really.
My writing is far better, and I can communicate my ideas more easily.
My sense of humor is weirder.
That's all I can think of. Of course, I don't know how much is from the internet and how much is from just growing up, but comparing myself to my less internet-prone friends, I'm fairly sure the above can largely be attributed to what I've seen, read, and done online.
1) I've definitly become more knowledgeable in some topics... I've been able to hold my own in real-world conversations on topics I would normally know nothing about (Ayn Rand comes to mind) using information drawn from this forum.
2) My religious convictions have been tampered. I used to be a pretty strong and sheltered Christian, and this forum has exposed me to a lot of new religious ideas and opinions I had not before encountered or seriously considered. This broadened my horizons and changed/softened some of my convictions.
3) I certainly know more about crazy perverted sexual habits than before, and words such as "dark", "creepy", "wrong" and "OH MY GOD!" are used much more often to describe my sense of humour.
I've also calmed down a hell of a lot, but I figure that's a side effect of going from 21 to 27 than my time here.
There's also the fact I've learned that not every forum on the internet is going to be a festering cess pool of stupidity and arrogance (fucking History Channel forums).
Edit: Goatse. I'll never forgive this forum for unleasing Goatse and Tubgirl on me. Fuck you PA.
That is for sure, and it was pretty strange before the internet aswell.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
I got online when I was a 15, and spent countless hours chatting and RPing. So I basically grew up online.
Which explains so much.
I can confidently say that the internet has made me absolutely hate Christianity. Not Christians, Christianity.
I think this is a big part of it. I've been part of some sort of "online" community (a BBS before the internet in the form we know and love) since I was about 11 years old. That's more time on the internet than off it. I definitely feel I've grown in all the ways mentioned above, but is that a direct result of the internet's influence or just a natural part of growing up?
Without the internet I'm confident I would have still developed communication skills, a more sophisticated sense of humour, a more active interest in the world around me, and so on. The internet just facilitated that.
I also agree with Chaos Theory a bit; thanks to forums, Wikpedia, and Google I'm a lot better at debating things on paper, and my sense of humor is darker.
Another thing: I'm also a lot more pissed off with American politics; if it weren't for news-based websites like Digg and Slashdot, I wouldn't hear about half of the crap the Executive branch and Congress tries to pull, which worries me about the part of the American public that doesn't have the Internet and doesn't hear about these things in other ways.
That is exactly what I do and, in fact, am doing now.
Thirded. I'm lucky I usually get afternoon shifts at work.
I find that you hit the wall roundabout 2:30 am, and then everything sort of melts together, probably owing to the brain's need for sleep to store memories. Proof of this need: I just tried to remember something I forgot before realizing that I had forgotten that I wasn't trying to remember anything...
I'm getting a Dr. Pepper.
love the internet, love this forum... better at putting thoughts into words, better at debating and more importantly finding information, much more open minded. good stuff.
Thanks, internet.
I think I get what you mean. It's sort of harder to gauge the passage of time this late. Seems that way, at least.
1) I'm not normal.
2) Cliques do, in fact, exist on the internet. Try being a car nut in a Transformer forum. It just doesn't work,
and when you point out that your hobby is being ridiculed by middle aged men talking about Optimus Prime all day, you're no longer welcome there.
3) And most importantly, I can get out of this town and survive. There is intelligent life out there. God, I was so happy when I realized this.
But it's changed me in that I used to have a very strict set of morals and beliefs. The internet has stripped me of most of these. I've also been desensitized to criticism, and thanks to p2p networks and wonderful sites like ogrish and consumption junction, extreme violence. It's also made it easier for me to understand others' point of views. Finally, it's given me a twisted sense of humor and I couldn't be happier with it. I don't think all these changes were just the internet, but I doubt I'd be the same person I am now without it. Living in a farming community with a total population of 1500, there's not a whole lot of culture outside of jacked up 4x4s and old country songs, and without the internet, I'm worried I may have turned into just another one of them.
I love you guys - you've made me who I am today.
And oddly enough, I can say with conviction that something I saw on GBStv dramatically changed my life.
The internet has actually probably improved my opinion of humanity overall, which of course is the opposite of what you'd expect. The average person is a pretty intelligent creature, when placed in the proper environment.
Never, ever go to 4chan.
Also, I'd say the masturbation point AbsoluteZero made applies to me as well.
You said that, and then I was curious, so I went to 4chan. I appreciate all you guys now.
And a big third on the masturbation point.
We don't go to Ravenchan...
I would open up photoshop and run with this, but it's four in the morning.
...Now if that isn't a good reason to keep your kids away from the computer, I don't know what is.
Ironically, it also taught me that, for the most part, we're all the same, which has really had an effect on how I interact with other people. I'm pretty much shameless, I'm not nervous in social situations, and my comfort zone is nearly limitless...you just see so much random shit on the internet if you spend enough time on it that it becomes difficult to be caught off guard or taken aback by anything.
It's certainly made me more liberal. I mean, I joke all the time about fascism, and sure I have all sorts of impulses that could not possibly be more tyrannical, but the thing about a forum like this is that you can't just idly spit out nonsense -- you have to be able to actually defend what you say. You have to look at what you write and think "is this logical? Is there evidence? What holes could be poked in this theory? Can it withstand The Cat's fury?" And you have to strip away the nonsense, refine your beliefs, and see what really makes sense.
And what makes sense tends to be pretty liberal. I've definitely become way more feminist since I got here, that's for sure.
And as to how much I masturbate -- I actually masturbated just as much even when I didn't have free access to the internet (9th/10th grade my parents didn't let me have it in my room). And I masturbate a lot. It's unhealthy.
Also, I now see the flaws in everything. There's a guy sitting at work here across from me (he can't see this screen, haha!) who seems to believe almost anything he reads, and he comes off as unbelievably naive to me. And it's all because on the internet, there's never an agreement on anything. You can put out any argument you want, and it will get torn apart, whether you're right or not. And then you have to put it back together from the tattered remains that are left.
It's probably taken my already liberal, agnostic self and enforced those traits.
Also, i find myself writing real pen and ink letters to my grandparents and discover i have become unable to sum up emotions and feelings without using punctuation faces and web abbreviations.
that can feel pretty depressing at times, i've developed a paranoia over whether people will understand jokes i write in letters if they aren't followed by a lol or whatever.... it's something i'm starting to break out of now i'm not online so much.
1)Sunshine!
2)Happiness!
3)Heartwarming coming-of-age story!
4)Bandwagoning!