I do think so far the internet is a net negative, yes. People's brains have been rewired to have less attention span, more outrage, more instant dopamine hits they don't have to work for, and just generally we're in an era where instead of learning anything people spend time watching 10 second videos. "But I learn a lot from tiktok/instagram" is the most depressing sentence I've heard in a long time.

There are positives to it, but none of them matter if the current trends don't change. We're headed into an authoritarian / populist hellscape worldwide, with leaders who will ignore climate change and every other problem that is existential, while probably creating some of their own. And while all this is happening we have a population that has their head so far into social media they're more worried about transgender identity politics than the world literally burning down around them.

I'm not hopeful for the future, and most of it is because of what the internet has done to our culture.