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> Surely if you allow some device to have such a massive negative impact on your life then this would be the case even pre-90s before computers and the internet became mainstream?

The mechanisms of addiction and socialization are definitely more complex than "it made me do it". I'm not saying that without the internet I would have become World President, but the technology definitely nudged me towards indulging some of the worst traits in my character. It also allowed me to tolerate situations that, probably, I should not have tolerated - which feels good in the immediate but can actually postpone a necessary reckoning. And it heavily influenced my career choices, with mixed results.

> Maybe you might have spent too much time hanging out at your local bar? - Perhaps you'd have been addicted to television?

Maybe, but those are well-known behaviors, fairly easy to spot and compensate for. Bars are actually hypersocial and promote local connections and some degree of personal expression. TV is very passive and boring, whereas on the internet there is always something new to read or do.

It wasn't until the '80s that we got a fairly solid (and popular) understanding of the mechanisms of broadcasting, some 60 years since it had become mainstream; as you said, there are a lot of things we don't know about the new world of 24h online access. Undoubtedly my life choices are ultimately my fault, but "no man is an island" cuts both ways - particularly because I see a lot of my (bad) experiences replicated in a lot of my friends.

I see your point and think you have quite a valid argument there! Some of the things you said definitely echo with my experiences. For example, I do surf the net too much because I love new information. And perhaps without that access I'd be a lot happier focusing on actual physical things in front of me.

I guess it's not as simple as boiling it down to the individual's own self-control. To some degree maybe my stance is also biased in that I want to empower myself to be the one to reduce my time online.

> It wasn't until the '80s that we got a fairly solid (and popular) understanding of the mechanisms of broadcasting

Curious what you mean by "the mechanisms of broadcasting" here--what discovery/formalization/legislation/else do you mean?

There is a massive library of analysis on the effects of broadcasting, from McLuhan to Eco. Most of it was put together in the 60s/70s and became popular outside academic circles in the 80s.

> The one area, where I wholeheartedly agree and recognize the serious dangerous of the internet and computer devices is in children. The threat of cyber-bullying and indeed, rather more subtle, the attention-seeking culture of always producing content at a young age is IMO, very scary when thought of in the context that these will be future adults who didn't know better. We need to guard against these enabled social pressures like we protect kids from smoking, drugs, alcohol and even to a lesser extent (i.e. it's not illegal) addictions to things like TV, video games and other behaviors that they might fall prey to.

This is always an interesting discussion to me as one of the first kids to really grow up online. (It still weirds me out that my childhood is illegal now.)

> Unfortunately, since this is relatively a new thing in society. We have not yet developed a solid culture around what is acceptable and what is not.

Also unfortunately, I doubt we will until Gen Z and Gen Alpha grow up and start having their own kids. I didn't really start to reckon with the bad parts of growing up online and the ways that it may have shifted my development until I was in my 30s and starting to see the same behavior in current kids and realizing 'wow, that was f'ed up.' Right now, there just aren't many adults who can speak to spending a shit ton of time online as pre-teens, and kids can smell inexperienced bullshit a mile away.

The other possible outcome is that the curriculum/culture for this will be written by people in power who have no idea what being a child on the internet is actually like + it will be written as a political football, so it will be completely ineffectual.

> Surely if you allow some device to have such a massive negative impact on your life then this would be the case even pre-90s before computers and the internet became mainstream?

Yes, but we are not living in the pre-90's. The internet is the TV/bar/etc. for us now. Some of us recognize that we not only gained but lost something as well.

And we want what we lost back.

In many ways I agree with you. I would like also to return to simpler times. Especially insta-texting (whatsapp) etc. SMS was fine for me to organise a meetup and then talk in person.

I guess my stance is more kind of to protect my mental sanity, to try and make this a "self-discipline" problem that I can control, and hence reduce my exposure/time online. That suits me but I do agree that to some degree there needs to be a wider societal change and I do agree that it can't all be placed on the individual to be super strong mentally when the internet is now literally a life necessity for operating in society in any dimension.

Do we really want a return of drinking at the bar after work?

I think a lot of social validation once came easy by mere virtue that we lived so closely to one another, and suburbia flipped that on it's head. Once it was the case that social activity required a) transport, b) money, c) time, it has become increasingly devoid from weeknights. We could remedy this by changing physical structures, but we won't.

In the U.S. we never had a "local" (Public House, Pub). But from what I understand, it was a nice way to mingle with those not necessarily in your social class, "industry".

The DMV feels to me like the only place now where I share a seat with people not like me.

Will highlight from your comments that alcohol consumption appeared to be more of a scourge before the internet. Before the world of personal leisure opened up, and after the creation of disconnected suburbia, I would guess drinking at the bar with workmates was a common extracurricular.