Most of them don't take advantage of this.

I dont think it's the access to said media. Rather I would blame it on the type of low-effort, low-quality content and the life choices promoted in these pieces. Think Tide pot challange, 1000 degree knifes and so on. Also the access to some adult material may have spoiled them in a sexual way, even tough they also had ways to acess this type of media in the past.

The difference in spoiledness between our generation and the newer generation is much smaller than the spoildness difference of the war and the post war generations.

But you are right that we as a civilisation didn't learn how to use the internet correctly.

Yes, not just from the media itself but how available it is. Kids can play the latest games and watch youtube from their mum's phone. Children have vert short attention spans now because of it.

It's not the limitless access to media but rather the dumbing down of media and technology in general. Even as recent as up till 2007 you had to at least put in a little bit of effort to find content, and that small obstacle helped ensure at least a little bit of quality and allowed you to learn in the process. E.g. if you wanted to chat with a group you had better learn how to use IRC, and in the process you will be exposed to the raw underpinnings. But now people can just go and use facebook or discord, and they don't learn as much in the process.

>>32040
learning IRC and other computer programs as a child wasn't much harder than loading up discord, just slightly more cumbersome. It certainly didn't teach me any underpinnings of the technology.

Programs like IRC were never designed to make people more computer-savvy or appeal to a more intellectual user base, they are just products of their time.

Oh absolutely. When I was a child we had TV and what was on TV was what you had access to unless you had it on tape which still kept things rather limited. You didn't want to buy five whole series on the off chance of maybe watching one of them some day. There was also renting, but then you had to go to the store, hope they carried whatever media you wanted, and then hope it wasn't checked out when you managed to find it on the shelf. It really made you appreciate finding something good a whole lot more. Internet used to be like that too, you really had to wait a while to get stuff because connections sucked and you had to hope and pray nobody needed to make a phone call during the five hours it took to download something only to then find out it wasn't at all what it was labeled as.

Now though? You can find almost anything instantly and hard drives are so huge that you can save everything and not worry about filling them up. It's certainly nice but when people talk about losing appreciation for something it really is true. I used to get so much more excited to get a new piece of media, wanted to learn more about it, now I don't. It really makes me wonder how it's going to affect the kids growing up right now and it's certainly affecting the media that gets made.

>>32040
That's mostly just companies using good UX to keep normies from feeling intimidated. Computers were never that difficult. Just look at all the middle aged women who moan on about "digital natives" as if we're some generation of flower children when the truth is they're just lazy and don't want to learn a new skill. So they throw up their arms about "not being a computer person" in order to get someone to come hold their hand so they don't have to put in any effort.

It can be hilarious though. I remember I once wrote a batch file to organize some files and to this day it has my mother convinced I'd make a great programmer. Poor woman doesn't have a clue.

Maybe. But there are worse consequences of this wide, convenient access. Regular people AKA plebs don't mind consuming trash and paying for it.
Since it's so easy now for them to throw money at their screens the demand for cheap fodder will never go down.
This means more low risk, low effort crap is being produced than ever before, while the amount of better stuff stays the same or decreases. Because it's less profitable, and profit is God.
That way both the wants of the lowest common denominator and the thirst of the predatory/parasitic machine known as business are satisfied. And we get endless trash!

>>32045
It was like this before media became immediately available, and has been like that for a long time, hell: anime is literally a commercial.

>>32046
Not all anime, and even then the scale varies wildly from "original productions" through "please buy the manga and figures" to "literal collectible merchandise (or, more recently, mobage) ad". And please, none of that "every anime is an ad because it wants you to buy the home video release" either - by that definition every commercial venture is an ad.

Going to blockbuster or Hollywood video was a real experience. I for one didn't have much access to game reviews so I picked stuff up based on the box art and info. It was a huge gamble that sometimes paid off sometimes didn't. Even when it didn't pay off I'd still get something out of crappy games. For better or worse I'd get my rental fee out of them. That and it was at least something different. I didn't exactly have a lot of friends growing up, and we had basic cable meaning endless reruns on a tiny selection of channels. I couldn't tell you how many times I've seen Fresh prince or Seinfeld in their entirety. I used to really envy those who had access to stuff like cartoon network. I remember buying used dvd box sets of tv shows I've heard about which was the only way I was able to see them. I'd replay the hell out of what few vhs tapes I had. It felt like something special getting a decent recording off the tv. I knew my VCR like the back of my hand, and knew the exact amount of time it would take to warm up and start recording after being stopped, and because I saw the same commercials over and over I had the timing down pretty well so I could record tv shows or movies without commercials.
Now $10 a month gets you unlimited whateverthehell you want with no ads. You can also torrent whatever you want and have it ready to go in no time in picture perfect quality and keep it forever with just a few clicks. There's no work or effort involve in getting any of this stuff anymore.

Kids all take it for granted if you ask me. They've got more stuff than they know what to do with. Between emulators, free give always, and free to play games, you can be set without dropping a dime. When I was a kid the best we had were demo disks, and even those weren't usually free. You bet your ass I played the hell out of stuff like pizza hut's ps1 demo disks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT4F_Ighn-U

>>32049
Say no more about PSX demos

>>32036
>the access to some adult material may have spoiled them in a sexual way
This concerns me greatly. Ever since the sexual revolution in the 60s, our society has become absolutely obsessed with sex. And on top of that we are expected to not only accept most types of sexual perversion, but to also celebrate them. I am already begining to see some teenagers on social media openly admitting to watching all kinds of degenerate porn in a non joking manner. As if to say "this is what I enjoy and you all better accept it."
I have no problem with anyone having some weird fetish (unless it's something morally reprehensible) but you need to keep that stuff to yourself or only talk about it in anonymous chatrooms. I would rather not live in a society where I see men openly getting pegged by a dominatrix in the streets.

>>32076
>social media
The honesty of anonymous imageboards and the anonymity of a mugshot. I don't think it should really count.

>>32078
I'm referring to Youtube. Not sure if that is considered social media but it's close.

>>32079
Technically, yes, but YouTube comments were never known for their quality.

In some ways yes, in other ways no.
On the one hand they can get by on easy mode using google and bots to solve all their questions, cheat on their tests, order whatever they want, and find anything they want including things that they aren't supposed to have access to like porn. It's convenient and easy, but that also makes people lazy, weak minded, and leaves them helpless the moment you cut the internet connection.
It also seems to be over stimulating people. With so many options, it's hard to focus on any one thing. It's hard to hold the attention of anyone growing up with all this constant noise.
They don't know what to believe or what to trust with information being piled onto them, which really screws them up. This also robs them of shared experiences with people of their own age, due to people being so divided. But that's a bit of a different matter.
Just look at how miserable and depressed they all are. They have a million of voices telling them what to think and do and how to live, with no idea which ones to trust, a million lives to compare their own to. A million distractions they can't indulge in without neglecting the most of everything else out there. The internet should have a hard age limit, and I'm talking like 18+ to use it. Minors aren't supposed to consume alcohol or Tabaco because it can cause physical issues with a still developing body. Why isn't the same consideration given to their mental health?
The writing is on the walls but no one wants to acknowledge the inconvenient truth, that it's all doing far more harm than good for those who aren't mature enough to handle it.

>>41689
I think a curated network should be created in the case of the general internet being age restricted, for educational purposes. Kids whose parents heavily regulate their computer usage end up computer illiterate.

>>41689
So youre saying we have to restrict and monitor access to the most powerful tool the free people of this planet have ever seen because of the possibility of a trivial threat to the well-being of children?

Which government agency did you say you were with again?