The Internet as a Place to Go, Rather Than a Place to Live

Introduction

The title of this post is not actually an original thought of mine, but a statement I came across on TikTok awhile ago. Unfortunately, I do not remember the username or any other information about the person who stated this, therefore I cannot give credit. I can only be thankful that someone finally stated this problem in modern society so precisely. Nonetheless, this statement is regarding the Internet, that used to be a place to go in the era of the 2000s up to mid 2010s, and from around 2015 up to nowadays, it has become a place to live. In this post will elaborate on that and state my opinion on the matter.

Physical media being left behind

To begin with, I believe that the reasoning behind this is the tendency of people either forgetting about or voluntarily letting go of all means of physical media. Physical media refers to DVD and CD players, turntables and records, VCR players and cassette tapes and digital or film cameras. As all of those means of media became outdated, the majority of people gave up on them and began relying on the World Web as a sourse of movies, music and books, and on smartphones as a main device that not only allows access to the Web, but can also be used for taking photos and videos.

What we let go of along with physical media

Quaility is the first feature we let go of along with physcial media. To give an example, the sound quailty of a vinyl is often said to be the highest. Despite that, very few people are interested in purchasing vinyl records and listening to them on turntables connected to home stereos. The reasoning behind this could possibly be the price – records are, in fact, quite expensive. So what about CDs? Most are relatively cheap and anyone can record a CD themselves from mp3 files on a laptop with a CD burner, making them even cheaper. So it must not be the price that makes people prefer smartphones for listening to music. Another example, regarding a different type of quailty, is about the visual quality of a photo taken with a digital camera, that while smartphone camera quality is constantly improving, an old digital or second-hand film camera will create photos of much greater quality than that of one taken with a smartphone, regardless of the brand and version. And, in spite of this, it is much more likely to come across someone taking a photo at a tourist destination, where photos are meant to be of high quality, with a smartphone, rather than with a digital or film camera. And once again, second-hand digicams are quite cheap. So price here is not a factor. Secondly, we let go of the authentic feeling of incorporating technology into our daily lives. There is nothing that makes you, quite literally in that sense, feel the music better than holding a cd in your hands. Same goes to taking pictures with a real camera and especially reading a book by turning the paper pages. So, despite the higher quality and the authentic feeling of physical media, why people prefer smartphones?

Sacrificing quality and authenticity for the sake of multifuncinality and accessability

The access to a number of actions, that would traditionally be preformed by a few different means of physical media, and those same actions being put together in a single device, makes smartphones exactly what they are—smart. They can be used for many different purposes and are accessible almost worldwide nowadays. Despite that, their muiltifunctional nature means that a person doesn't need to get off of their smartphone almost at all—it provides them with access to a ton of music and movies, pictures of different types of art and online books. It allows the user to take photos and videos quickly and easily, calls can be made and text messages can be sent in a matter of seconds. This is the main reason why so many people voluntarily let go of physical media and before they realise it—begin living their lives online—it is easy, quick and cheap.

Involuntarily living on the Internet

Now that the reason for usage is cleared, we should ask ourselves—what does that usage lead to? Despite smartphones being easily accessible and multifunctional, they are the main reason why the Internet has consumed a huge part of so many people's lives. Relying on a single device for a number of operations, especially a device that gives access to the Internet—a virtual space—really easily causes people to forget about the place where we are meant to live and where we feel best living—physical space. Many people forget about the feeling of real life in the process of preforming so many actions online and living on the Internet becomes something that they don't even realise they are doing.

How do we go back?

There is no actual way of going back to only or mainly using physcial media. Time goes on and we cannot interfere with that. Despite that, there is one thing that should definitely be done—incorporating physical media into our lives as much as we do with smartphones, laptops and computers. Listening to music on CDs, watching movies on DVDs or Blu-Ray discs. Reading physical rather than online books. Taking a digicam with us on trips and vacations. Going to the cinema or theathre. The Internet should once again become a place we visit, where we can talk to our friends, watch a movie or listen to music from time to time—when we don't own that CD or when that friend lives abroad. That is what it's meant to be—a part of our lives—not where we live them.

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