The internet is already over

As the internet evolves, especially for us “very online people,” there’s a deepening sense that we are, together, becoming something beyond the scope of our original intentions. We are rapidly approaching a sum far greater and more mysterious than what we often perceive as its cold, mechanistic parts.

My prediction may be too early, but I think it is directionally correct. The centrality of the internet in our lives will fade. Sure, we will still use it for banking, for sending off quick missives and for looking things up and so on. But the current culture of all day, every day screen time will fade. It will become passé, spurious, and something... See more

This point cannot be emphasized enough: the Internet is the single most disruptive1 force of our lifetimes because it does not evolve existing ways of doing things, but completely smashes the assumptions underlying them — assumptions we often didn’t even realize existed.

Many of us now alive are in the unique position of having been so both before and after the revolution of the internet. We’re a lost group — to me, anyway, even now none of my technological habits seem inevitable. There’s still a sense that this vast binge of novelty will stop and we’ll arrive at some levelheaded equilibrium between then and now. T... See more

Like so many technologies that came before, it seems to be here to stay; the question is not how to escape it but how to understand ourselves in its inescapable wake.

In his new book, “The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is,” Justin E. H. Smith, a professor of philosophy at the Université Paris Cité, argues that “the present situation is intolerab... See more

Mostly, though, I’ve had the sense that the Internet is in a state of limbo, suspended between the remains of an aging, broken system and the nebulous beginnings of a new one. One of the Internet’s best qualities remains that anyone can start over, at any time, with a blank Web site, and create whatever they want.

No, I think this will all end, as T.S Eliot said, with a whimper. People will simply lose interest and walk away. Because the internet now is boring . People spend all day scrolling because they are trying to find what isn’t there anymore. The authenticity, the genuinely human moments, the fun.