I feel "the internet" is too fundamental of a concept to even be evaluated under positives or negatives. (Human interface) machines talking to each other globally? That's a main driver in our world going forward. We're not gonna decide "that's bad for us we're not gonna do it anymore" like we did with CFCs.

I'm gonna put it like this:
the spoken word -> the written word -> the mass reproduceable written word -> the mass reproduceable written word, everywhere, always

For me, the biggest win of the internet is that it democratized the media landscape. Anyone can make anything and then distribute it directly, without needing to go through a publisher. The result is that very personal, very niche products are allowed to exist in a way that they wouldn't otherwise.

I'd say it's definitely been a benefit overall, but you can't force people to use it in that way that's good for them or society at large. The internet has been great at allowing abnormal people to find kinship with others and allows subcultures to proliferate more than they could before which is a huge net gain.
I feel confident saying social media and has been more harmful than beneficial after the introduction of algorithms and other nefarious methods that prioritizes outrage and tribalism to increase engagement which increases their advertising revenue. Its tendrils extended outward and alongside clickbait news/youtube/etc it's made people far more aggressive than they should be.

What is beneficial to society is extremely subjective and the impact of something as ubiquitous as the internet is too varied to fully analyze. Many important historical events, which have led to what we consider better societies, have been sparked by people generating outrage to fuel violence and hatred. From that point of view, maybe the internet making it easy to find counterpoints and adding additional layers between receiving the message and organizing to act on it has damaged society's ability to enact radical change for the better.

>>115660
Which has also led to the commercialization of every niche available. Markets that are too small or too unsavory for publishers will be targeted and filled by individuals who care more about potential profit than artistic expression.

>>115663
But online kinship also reduces the incentive to find it in real life. Why engage with the mainstream when you can easily connect with your subculture in an environment that encourages you to remain, and become even more, abnormal? I'd hardly consider hikkiNEETs a great boon for society. And then there are the subcultures that politicize their abnormality.

It's up to the parents to monitor electronics access and encourage hobbies so their children don't waste their developmental years watching Cory In the House reruns. I don't feel happier now that I have unrestricted access as an adult.

The answer cannot be positive because smartphones ruined pretty much everything and even affect people who don't use them. There is no public benefit from people using their phones in public, for chatting on the phone, for watching videos, playing games, or scanning a receipt with a grocery store app, filming incidents instead of intervening in a just manner, ruining search engine results with the filth which is unsensual one-liners made for superficial reactions.

All technologies are bad because they empower the establishment more than the public. The internet is no exception.

>>115670
But without technology you just have feudalism which enables the establishment even more

>>115666
Smartphones have probably been an overall negative when it comes to social situations since it seems like people are far less interested in interacting with other people these days, but I feel like an old man when I say it. It would be really great if people used them more as handheld computers to enhance their life instead of a way to make small chat endlessly while ignoring the people around them. I wonder if the LLM "AI" stuff will make this worse once it becomes established enough (if it's allowed to).

>>115672
A feudal establishment is significantly weaker than a centralized bureaucracy. Why do you think they all switched over?

>>115673
I felt disappointed when I had IRL conversations with various persons who then google what I had just said so they can acknowledge the stuff I said is probably true. How is this not rude? Or another situation, my relative called me a certain word(I consider it a bland way to categorize people) and out of good will, I made the impression not to know that word, then that person decided to show me the wiki entry to that word on his phone, then I made the impression the letter font is too tiny to read and there are complex greek words in the explanation he doesn't understand either. It makes me lose my trust in people when I see there's no commitment to their words.

>>115676
It could be rude but it would work, otherwise the person would either ignore what you said because they don't believe it or they would have to look it up when they get home to make sure it's accurate.
I have relatives that often make bold claims and I just tell them I'll look into it later(sometimes I do and yes, they are bold claims that are usually false or taken out of context).

>>115676
You sound like an insufferable twat and that word is probably imminently accurate to have been worth the effort of explaining it to you.

Search engines (which are absolutely useless now) do ruin a lot of pub conversations though

>>115678
What's with the aggression? Nothing said was worth attacking him over. Take it easy.

It used to be really good, but I feel the way search engines have degraded to the point where the "dead internet theory" is becoming true. AI generated articles and websites have taken over most search engines and most are worthless and has resulted in most users either going to social media or alternate protocols. I'm not even gonna go into the societal rammifications it has and will continue to have

>>115660
>that it democratized the media landscape
This wasnt a good thing. It has enabled a lot of unqualifed, very dumb and or very malicious people to speak from positions of authority.

More begnignly with entertainment, well, everyone thinks they can podcast even if they have no idea what it's gonna be about and manage to use both a radio voice and many verbal crutches at the same time. Its not even just Ben from Swindon doing it in has garage, every celebrity who has no business doing a podcast like the Osbournes do one not even knowing what they're gonna talk about

There's also the topic of it making porn instantly accesible and free, but I dont know if thats in the scope of this thread

>>115684
I'll take the garbage if it means I have more choice in what I consume. I don't have to consume the crap if I don't want to, after all

I think a lot of my view on this sort of thing came from my experiences with the internet growing up. When I was young, a lot of what I wanted from media either didn't exist in traditional media, or wasn't available within the purview of smalltown suburban America. When I really figured out how to use the internet, it felt like a veil had been lifted and I could finally find what I was looking for, even if it wasn't exactly as polished as a mainstream corporate product would be.

The internet has been a net boon for me because I hate going out and socializing, and none of my interests align much with anyone I know in person. >>115663 is right in that. But I don't really care about the harmful effects social media has had because I don't care for the world outside the forums for loli anime princesses that we use to talk about fun otaku stuff. The only way to improve things would be a mass exodus of normal people away from the web to let us have tea and chat in peace.