UK study: Almost half of young people would prefer a world without internet

5/20/2025 at 1:47:54 AM

Highly specific subset of Internet. Not to disagree, but this is like saying people want to terminate voltage delivery to the home because they don't like radio.

by ggm

5/20/2025 at 7:13:02 AM

Or like abolishing all electrical/internal-combustion vehicles, but what they actually want is a walkable neighborhood.

by Terr_

5/20/2025 at 1:53:57 AM

> Highly specific subset of Internet.

Can I ask what you're basing that assertion on? The article makes it sound as if they were indeed referring to the internet in general: "46% said they would rather be young in a world without the internet altogether."

by clipsy

5/20/2025 at 6:01:20 AM

I don’t think many young people know what “The Internet” is. They probably just think it’s social media. Or “apps.” Heck, a lot of people who grew up with the Internet still confuse the web with the Internet.

by ryandrake

5/20/2025 at 3:22:29 AM

You are right to question my input. But, that said, I believe there is distinct confusion amongst internet consumers between the protocol stack and framing, and the forwarding of packets and applications services such as web and IM services. I wonder to what extent they have nuance in what "without the internet altogether" really means. Your point would be that they seem to be saying they really want the 1970s (or earlier back). Maybe thats right. It certainly seems to be based on the numbers. But the story arc mainly relates to social media, tiktok and like.

It's like when people say they want to go back to victorian values (of society at large) and forget that pre-dates antibiotics and anaesthesia. These people regret the socialised problems of being connected, misinformation at scale, loss of agency and genuine face-to-face communication and yearn for a simpler childhood. All well and good, but there's baby/bathwater latent in this.

by ggm

5/20/2025 at 2:18:11 AM

I'll give them 24 hours until they ask for YouTube and Netflix again [1]. Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1348/

[1] And how is call that new video thing? TikTakToe?

by gus_massa

5/20/2025 at 3:54:30 AM

Yeah. The xkcd is right.

But it was less stressful at the same time. The shared reality was the 6 pm news. No endless conspiracy theories.

by chairmansteve

5/20/2025 at 7:51:18 AM

"Shared reality" - lovely phrase! That's the thing that's missing for most people. In the office everyone is watching different tv shows, movies, listening to different music etc. There isn't much shared reality, at least in the way I remember as a child. Even my own kid has a show she's found on Netflix that she enjoys but none of her peers knows about, or cares to know about.

by illwrks

5/20/2025 at 5:49:45 AM

A friend is listening to every recording of Coast to Coast AM, which began in 1988. He notes that it was a remarkably interactive format; people would call in and try to trick Art Bell with preposterous conspiracy theories; Art Bell would play along, because it was fun (and it was his job).[0] The 6pm news was never interactive; what they talked about was never fun; it was and still is an endless stream of terror.

[0] I'm not defending Coast to Coast AM; I'm noting it's interactive format.

by potholereseller

5/20/2025 at 5:54:54 AM

For a brief but refreshing period in 2004-05, I was completely without a computer or Internet connection at home. When I moved that year, I also ditched my T.V. for a very zen experience.

It was a dank and dreary little studio apartment and my only companionship was an AM/FM radio. In an interesting turn of events, I experienced Hurricane Katrina solely through audio news reports. I suffered vicariously with the victims and sang along to Aaron Neville's "Louisiana 1929".

Besides a lot of NPR, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Wait Wait -- Don't Tell Me, and Lake Wobegon, I also listened to Art Bell's show; George Noory was often substituting at that point. It was really entertaining. In fact I used to be enthralled with the supernatural stuff when I was a really little kid picking up books at swap meets. I loved UFOs and OBEs and NDEs and SHCs. The Coast to Coast sessions brought back fond memories of those carefree days.

by AStonesThrow

5/20/2025 at 9:52:54 AM

When we had that power outage in Spain, for a brief period we had a taster of what the world used to be: we had electricity/TV/radio but no Internet access. I must say it was delightful but I'm not sure how it would be long-term. My world-view certainly opened up with Internet access.

ps. I considered using em dash in this paragraph but decided against it due to LLM's using it. Made me a little bit self-conscious for a second. I am self-editing myself not to be mistaken with an AI.

by ricardobayes

5/21/2025 at 12:01:44 PM

As a counter point, a couple years ago wind storms knocked out power for close to a week where I live (KY, USA). I’ve had power outages before but this time, maybe because of how widespread it was, it made cellular service unusable. I could drive a block away and get a tiny bit of signal but nothing else would come through. No internet, no texts, no iMessage, no Discord.

Not only was it incredibly isolating but I never fully internalized how much I rely on the internet. Thinking back it had been well over a decade since I had been that disconnected. I’d been without power for 1-2 days but only truly without internet for a few hours total (often with a way to get online if I really wanted/needed to, like while flying).

I had plenty of entertainment (books and podcasts) on my phone but I kept trying to look up info on the web. I’d hear or read something, want to follow up on it, type in a google search then be brought crashing back down to the reality of no internet. “Phantom Internet Syndrome”? It really surprised me how much “background” Internet searching/etc I do which I don’t even think about.

I lasted less than 6 waking hours (went out in the evening, in the morning I called it quits) before giving up and driving to my parent’s house (which I was already planning on doing later that week. I have a full office setup there as well).

That experience was eye-opening to me. If someone asked me how often I use the Internet and/or how I’d fare without it, I probably would’ve guessed very wrong.

by joshstrange

5/20/2025 at 12:56:35 PM

You had electricity in the power outage? I guess you mean battery powered radio and that the radio transmitter had the same, while telecoms base stations did not.

by harvey9

5/20/2025 at 1:51:17 PM

I think they meant there was a window where the residential power came back on but the internet was still out.

by haiku2077

5/20/2025 at 5:44:41 AM

Is there a press release from this BSI? Wish we got better than opinions from both news sites and comments. I also suspect the youth define "internet" as 5 apps.

by aitchnyu

5/20/2025 at 3:40:44 AM

For most people, Snapchat, Tiktok, Discord, WhatsApp and other toxic environments is the de facto internet because it makes up 99% of their usage time.

It gets worse in poorer countries, where ISPs made deals with Facebook (ever wondered why some Indians are not able to google? Because google costs money, facebook groups doesn't). Additionally, whole infrastructures run on WhatsApp. In those regions you'll see WhatsApp numbers on container ships, trains, harbor buildings, factories etc because it's easier than maintaining a website for that.

(Edit: see my comment about internet.org)

The younger generation only uses smartphones because parents cannot afford to pay for both a laptop and a smartphone. Ask any teacher about that, they'll easily confirm this.

The problem we're facing is the overproprietarization of the internet. What we see as an internet where we can find information and learn about things, they see misinformation, propaganda, toxic shitstorms, and distraction. Even youtube has gone to shit, what started out as a new way to access knowledge in an entertaining way its early days.

And it's not only that, you can't even point kids to a safe website that will give them only links to learn/study about topics they're interested in, because google meanwhile has fully embraced its evil side of corporate greed that even the founders knew about was morally a conflict of interest in the beginning.

A lot of countries are thinking about banning smartphones from schools for this very reason. We (as a society) built apps so morally and uncontrollably bad that we created a whole generation of kids with self-induced ADHD, and now we're wondering why we have an education and therapy crisis.

Duh.

by cookiengineer

5/20/2025 at 7:23:27 AM

> that we created a whole generation of kids with self-induced ADHD

There is no evidence that social media/internet/whatever use causes ADHD, it's a neurological disorder, not a psychological one. The modern internet is harmful for the attention span and mental health, but that's not the same as ADHD.

by Llamamoe

5/20/2025 at 3:48:42 AM

> ever wondered why Indians are not able to google? Because google costs money, facebook groups doesn't

This is absolutely wrong. FB did that in SE Asia. But in India, this led to the creation of IIRC Internet Freedom Foundation which fights for Internet freedom to this day and established a strong foundation for net neutrality . FB tried to destroy net neutrality in India and failed.

But the broader point stands. Whatsapp, Youtube, Sharechat …etc., is internet for a huge percentage of the population.

by tecoholic

5/20/2025 at 4:11:18 AM

> FB tried to destroy net neutrality in India and failed.

FB to this date still owns the internet.org domain, which was literally their marketing at the time. Free plans from mobile carriers had/have access to a few selected websites and not the rest of the real internet.

While I agree that the courts decided against this at some point, it was around 13+ years too late, because a generation of mobile users got hooked already.

Meta even went as far as deleting their internet.org website from the web archive, all years result in a 404 now. Interesting.

by cookiengineer

5/20/2025 at 4:35:30 AM

> Free plans from mobile carriers had/have access to a few selected websites and not the rest of the real internet.

Interesting to learn. In China, mobile carriers also have similar deals with huge content providers. You can buy data plans with a discounted rate specifically for several YouTube, Netflix, and TikTok like apps.

by crvdgc

5/20/2025 at 6:06:38 AM

That internet.org "generation of mobile users" was before smartphones became ubiquitous and Jio (cheap connectivity) came into picture, and so is negligible.

It wasn't even successful in its own time - the ISPs that partnered with FB for internet.org at that time got submerged soon after. Absolutely nothing of that legacy remains. You will find it difficult to catch netizens in India who even remember FB's Free Basics.

by dartharva

5/20/2025 at 5:49:23 AM

GP must be surrounded by Iphone users too. Most smartphones in India are Android and they all have Gmail and use other Google apps.

by aitchnyu

5/20/2025 at 5:18:20 AM

The biggest question is why are they doing things they obviously dislike. Even peer pressure can't really explain it.

by constantcrying

5/20/2025 at 5:25:51 AM

The same question can be asked of any kind of addictive behavior.

by esperent

5/20/2025 at 5:58:43 AM

Exactly. I’m sure many smokers would say they would prefer a world without cigarettes.

by ryandrake

5/20/2025 at 6:17:18 AM

Invisible hand… economy ostensibly runs on tech investment. Toddlers to oldest alive have a smartphone in the first world.

So you’re correct, it’s not peer pressure, it’s everyone pressure.

by surokbut

5/20/2025 at 7:29:53 AM

They think they would, maybe. Half would starve within a week

by moi2388

5/20/2025 at 2:34:52 AM

The big assumption here is if they know what the internet is.

There was a time when it was a big series of tubes.

by worthless-trash

5/21/2025 at 4:37:36 AM

Oh i must have hit a nerve, I think HN massively overestimates the laymen understanding of technology.

by worthless-trash

5/20/2025 at 1:23:40 AM

Easy they can get a feature phone and delete all social media accounts.

by 6Az4Mj4D

5/20/2025 at 1:51:47 AM

"[A] world without internet" != "A world where everyone else still uses the internet constantly but I don't"

by clipsy

5/20/2025 at 6:08:43 AM

Feature phones (generally) aren't capable of providing mobile banking/payments and navigation apps, which is something most have taken for granted

by dartharva

5/20/2025 at 8:03:20 AM

Already done. Allows life to focus on more valuable things, like in the past. A Nokia in the bag for work and a tablet with a cracked screen in the cupboard for banking.

by lsharkey602