Has The Internet Changed Who We Are?

[Booldawg]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-31924472

This behaviour is no doubt a product of peoples narcissistic desire to 'amuse' by being the first to post the footage on YouTube, Facebook or wherever.

Never heard of a similar instance of this happening before. Has the internet de-sensitised some people?

[Gromit]

No.
People have always 'rubber necked', gawped and generally been voyeuristic.

The fact that everyone have a camera/movie camera in their pocket now hasn't altered any behaviour.

[tinkerbell23]

Possibly i learned more with the net because some answers are at the touch of a button now? X

[Gromit]

From 2008. Before most people had a movie camera on their phone.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3108987/Suicide-teenager-urged-to-jump-by-baying-crowd.html

[jim360]

It's not changed us in this way -- mostly the internet has had effects on how visible various previously-obscured sides to humanity were.

[pixie373]

No. People can just prove they are idiots in a greater variety of ways, now.

[ChillDoubt]

Not really. Morbid fascination is and always has been prevalent throughout the ages.

[Gromit]

I remember a jumper from Blackpool Tower in probably the 1980s and someone wrote in giant letters on the beach, 'JUMP!'

[IggyB]

No, the only thing that's changed is that you know about it. I remember being kept back from a building where a teenage was threatening to jump down a stairwell in the late 90s and a crowd was urging him to do it in just the same way.

[ludwig]

As everyone above says, the only thing that's different is that we can film things easier.

[janbee]

So any people no longer have social lives. The internet has become their relationship. They have a friendship with a keyboard. Just look at the AB e.g. Just look at the amount of people who post on this site for most of their waking hours. The AB IS their social life. They seem to think that amassing great amounts of profile points makes them successful and popular. The internet is great and I'm not knocking it ... but it shouldn't "take over" your life.

[waterboatman]

I agree jan. I'm rarely on here after about 9.30 AM.

[janbee]

... oops, sorry, typo ^^^ should read MANY not any.

[waterboatman]

I notices! ;o}

[janbee]

:-)

[waterboatman]

sharp eyes I've got. I keep stabbing mesen wiv 'em.

[xstitcher]

I find it has made life much easier. I'm able to get more English books than I would find in the shops and library, xstitch patterns and accessories are more varied as most hobby shops here have only a few. I can Google answers for everything. The world is at my fingertips, so yes it has made me a very satisfied person.

[andy-hughes]

pixie - // No. People can just prove they are idiots in a greater variety of ways, now. //

Spot on!

[Hopkirk]

Do you remember trying to do your homework, having to go to the library and search for info - usually ending up with the Encyclopedia Britannica (or in my case not doing the homework)

[youngmafbog]

You could look at it the other way in that the internet now shows us quickly what people are like. There can be no 'the papers are hyping it' we see it in front of our eyes.

So yes I think the internet will change who we are, in the long term I think it will be for the better. At present the general public is just coming to terms with technology as it is happening so fast. It [IT] will level out soon though.

[mccfluff]

people used to attend public hangings, beheadings. I don't think this is new behaviour just a speedier more accessible way to receive and obtain information.