It's midnight, time for shitposting

In Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch argues that there are three waves of "internet people". The first was "before it was cool", the second when it became mainstream (give or take the turn of the millennium) and the third when internet was already a thing. The third are young people, too young to remember the 1900s and therefore the time before internet, and old people who go online because it's unavoidable and also more intuitive and easy than ever before. Despite the generation gap, they have things in common and in contrast to the first and second wave (which she also subdivides but that's beside the point). For example they never used mail as primary communication and they have smartphones as first device and most often second hand from a family member. Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk and sorry if I took your shitpost too serious but there's truth and science behind it and I couldn't not share it.

Open ##2470952

@Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2026-05-04 08:01

See I don't entirely blame young people here. I downloaded a linux distro from their torrent mirror last year and my ISP started emailing me literal threats about piracy laws. It's the corporations. (Tho I am pretty young myself for lemmy standards tbf)

Open ##2470953

@Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world 2026-05-03 00:04

So I was on the internet in 1995 and was visiting BBS's for about 10 years before that so I'm good with computers. I feel for my parents and the young ones because I'm a basic when it comes to phones and tablets, if shit goes beyond touching what I want to do I'm full on lost

Open ##2470954

@StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works 2026-05-04 21:02

Whelp, looks like PCs will become a thing of the past at this rate, no use denying it

Open ##2470955

@Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 2026-05-04 17:01

Gen alpha grew up using tablets/smartphones pretty early, while they may not have had access to a PC. Seems like a failure of the educational system. Boomers just refuse to learn new shit.

Open ##2470956

@texture@lemmy.world 2026-05-03 10:53

this is just an accurate fact

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@ponypuncher@lemmy.world 2026-05-04 17:00

Trends are cyclical

Open ##2470958

@Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-05-03 09:36

***scoffs*** Writing things down?!? If you do that you'll cease to exercise your memory and will grow to rely on external means. Back in my day we built our memory. (If you're not familiar this was basically Socrates' (as portrayed by Plato) view on writing things down)

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@nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 2026-05-03 11:01

"Romans, they go home?"

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@JakoJakoJako13@piefed.social 2026-05-03 04:15

I was born in the late 1900s, I can only go back so far.

Open ##2470964

@HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 2026-05-04 09:41

Yeah, it's the iCloud-local issue. I swear, almost all of them default to that. It plays fine with R 90% of the time, but when it borks it takes FOREVER to troubleshoot!

Open ##2470971

@SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2026-05-02 23:12

Wow, they're almost people

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@SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2026-05-02 23:25

Life begins at 30

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@LodeMike@lemmy.today 2026-05-03 00:41

Are you sure you have "gen-z" correct? We're all adults now

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Replies (23)