I think the problem is that people are used to and want the surveillance state. That's seen by acceptance and demands of various legislation. Younger people also seem to largely think that the "old internet" is a dangerous if not life threatening place.
Overall there also like in many other areas there also is a kind of defeatism going on. People essentially know fascism is coming/already here and the question like in any society is so you want to stand out, take great risks and a big likelihood of no reward or try to live a life where you indulge in distractions instead probably giving a lot less resistance.
Younger people are generally way more ignorant about technology than the previous generations, despite spending a lot of time daily with digital technologies.
There was an optimum in millenials/early gen-Z, with steep declines in both temporal directions.
And you are afraid of what you don't know.
Young people spend most of their time in large silos and 'knowledge' amounts to meta-knowledge within these systems. For these two reasons these silos are defended.
As an earlier gen-Z-er, I agree with you that it seems that younger people are ignorant about technology outside the mainstream (so outside of silos, social media etc), but it’s a certain kind of lack of awareness than deliberate ignorance. I think that it’s not really a feeling of the “old” internet being dangerous, but they are just unaware that it exists in the first place.
Say, if your first contact with technology was an iPhone, and you only used iPhones and iPads, then I think that it’s rather unlikely that you have been introduced to the concept of a “folder” (or a save icon, even). Even less likely that you ever stared at the filesystem hierarchy of the operating system, which would make you aware of various things, like the fact that the OS is, too, made of files. These are things that we take for granted but if you have never been exposed to them, they just don’t exist in your mind.
And after years of using “convenient” operating systems like iOS or Chrome OS, having to suddenly deal with these extra concepts like “files” and “directories” seems clunky, it seems like you now have more things to think about to do your work, even though these concepts might actually open new possibilities in your workflow that might actually make you do your work quicker, or might let you feel more confident in operating the computer, or give you more freedom as a user etc.
So, I think the great tragedy is that younger people just don’t have to deal with how tech works. Until some years ago, using a computer effectively required you to have some degree of understanding of the file system hierarchy. Now, maybe a young person would be willing to learn, but the chances of having someone show them these things are much smaller.
Thank you for your elaborate reply, I think this is an excellent example! A few years ago I gave freshmen lectures in computer science with around 500 attendees every term, and on the first lectures, I asked who knew what a file path is. It was shocking to see that a not insignificant portion of students did not raise their hands.
Another good example in my eyes is the shocking realisation I had a few years ago that it has become super uncommon to build your own computer in 'gaming' circles. When I grew up, also as an early gen-Z-er, it was very common among my even relatively non-technological peers to build your own computer, and we would bully those people that bought pre-built systems.
I don't fault the younger people for this, and I don't want to sound elitist, of course. I think 'our' generation just grew up in a time window when you could still tinker playfully (game modding, affordable DIY hardware components, etc.), so you naturally had to acquire skills to do cool stuff.
I think it might be that related to these silos in general having a lot of interest in legislation that is hard follow for eg. federated, non-profit or simply "poorer" alternative social networks. And when these entities control the platform even if there is no explicit "propaganda" for it there is certainly a bias that might indirectly affect things.
It's the same pattern we see with AI regulation or the smartphone duopoly now. When you are big you want nobody else to be able to simply repeat the path you took and be better. You want to make entry a lot harder or in best case impossible.
One way of doing that is requiring automated or 24/7 content moderation, requiring lots of legal counseling from the get go, requiring extra staff, custom-built tools for law enforcement, certification, etc.
Sure, there was some unsavory stuff that should've been taken more seriously by the mods, but the absolute majority of it was harmless, if edgy, shitposting, no different from what is being posted today on either bsky or xitter.
So far I've only heard about it in negative ways when talked about by younger people. All was possible. No/little moderation. People could just talk about suicide/sex/<insert controversial topic here> without being watched or moderated by a big corporation/algorithm 24/7. I've heard "worse than TikTok" in that context a couple of times. There also appears to be only association with the worst kind of content (rotten.com, liveleak, etc.).
These seems to be in line with legislation like UK Online Safety Act, that content creators use words like "unalive" to get cross filters, etc.
That said my knowledge is limited. If you have counter examples, please let me know.
reezer | 11 hours ago
I think the problem is that people are used to and want the surveillance state. That's seen by acceptance and demands of various legislation. Younger people also seem to largely think that the "old internet" is a dangerous if not life threatening place.
Overall there also like in many other areas there also is a kind of defeatism going on. People essentially know fascism is coming/already here and the question like in any society is so you want to stand out, take great risks and a big likelihood of no reward or try to live a life where you indulge in distractions instead probably giving a lot less resistance.
n3t | 9 hours ago
What makes you believe that?
FRIGN | 9 hours ago
Younger people are generally way more ignorant about technology than the previous generations, despite spending a lot of time daily with digital technologies.
There was an optimum in millenials/early gen-Z, with steep declines in both temporal directions.
And you are afraid of what you don't know.
Young people spend most of their time in large silos and 'knowledge' amounts to meta-knowledge within these systems. For these two reasons these silos are defended.
tudorr | 8 hours ago
As an earlier gen-Z-er, I agree with you that it seems that younger people are ignorant about technology outside the mainstream (so outside of silos, social media etc), but it’s a certain kind of lack of awareness than deliberate ignorance. I think that it’s not really a feeling of the “old” internet being dangerous, but they are just unaware that it exists in the first place.
Say, if your first contact with technology was an iPhone, and you only used iPhones and iPads, then I think that it’s rather unlikely that you have been introduced to the concept of a “folder” (or a save icon, even). Even less likely that you ever stared at the filesystem hierarchy of the operating system, which would make you aware of various things, like the fact that the OS is, too, made of files. These are things that we take for granted but if you have never been exposed to them, they just don’t exist in your mind.
And after years of using “convenient” operating systems like iOS or Chrome OS, having to suddenly deal with these extra concepts like “files” and “directories” seems clunky, it seems like you now have more things to think about to do your work, even though these concepts might actually open new possibilities in your workflow that might actually make you do your work quicker, or might let you feel more confident in operating the computer, or give you more freedom as a user etc.
So, I think the great tragedy is that younger people just don’t have to deal with how tech works. Until some years ago, using a computer effectively required you to have some degree of understanding of the file system hierarchy. Now, maybe a young person would be willing to learn, but the chances of having someone show them these things are much smaller.
FRIGN | 7 hours ago
Thank you for your elaborate reply, I think this is an excellent example! A few years ago I gave freshmen lectures in computer science with around 500 attendees every term, and on the first lectures, I asked who knew what a file path is. It was shocking to see that a not insignificant portion of students did not raise their hands.
Another good example in my eyes is the shocking realisation I had a few years ago that it has become super uncommon to build your own computer in 'gaming' circles. When I grew up, also as an early gen-Z-er, it was very common among my even relatively non-technological peers to build your own computer, and we would bully those people that bought pre-built systems.
I don't fault the younger people for this, and I don't want to sound elitist, of course. I think 'our' generation just grew up in a time window when you could still tinker playfully (game modding, affordable DIY hardware components, etc.), so you naturally had to acquire skills to do cool stuff.
reezer | 7 hours ago
I think it might be that related to these silos in general having a lot of interest in legislation that is hard follow for eg. federated, non-profit or simply "poorer" alternative social networks. And when these entities control the platform even if there is no explicit "propaganda" for it there is certainly a bias that might indirectly affect things.
It's the same pattern we see with AI regulation or the smartphone duopoly now. When you are big you want nobody else to be able to simply repeat the path you took and be better. You want to make entry a lot harder or in best case impossible.
One way of doing that is requiring automated or 24/7 content moderation, requiring lots of legal counseling from the get go, requiring extra staff, custom-built tools for law enforcement, certification, etc.
reezer | 7 hours ago
hjvt | 7 hours ago
I mean, just look at how they talk about 4chan.
Sure, there was some unsavory stuff that should've been taken more seriously by the mods, but the absolute majority of it was harmless, if edgy, shitposting, no different from what is being posted today on either bsky or xitter.
reezer | 7 hours ago
So far I've only heard about it in negative ways when talked about by younger people. All was possible. No/little moderation. People could just talk about suicide/sex/<insert controversial topic here> without being watched or moderated by a big corporation/algorithm 24/7. I've heard "worse than TikTok" in that context a couple of times. There also appears to be only association with the worst kind of content (rotten.com, liveleak, etc.).
These seems to be in line with legislation like UK Online Safety Act, that content creators use words like "unalive" to get cross filters, etc.
That said my knowledge is limited. If you have counter examples, please let me know.