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

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/20/almost-half-of-young-people-would-prefer-a-world-without-internet-uk-study-finds

by kawera • 1 year ago

75 33 1 year ago

theguardian.com

6Az4Mj4D• 1 year ago

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

clipsy2• 1 year ago

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

dartharva2• 1 year ago

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

lsharkey602• 1 year ago

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.

ggm2• 1 year ago

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.

clipsy2• 1 year ago

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."

gus_massa• 1 year ago

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?

ggm2• 1 year ago

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.

ryandrake2• 1 year ago

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.

Terr_• 1 year ago

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

worthless-trash2• 1 year ago

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

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

worthless-trash2• 1 year ago

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

cookiengineer2• 1 year ago

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.

tecoholic• 1 year ago

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.

cookiengineer2• 1 year ago

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.

aitchnyu2• 1 year ago

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

Llamamoe• 1 year ago

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.

constantcrying• 1 year ago

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

esperent• 1 year ago

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

ryandrake2• 1 year ago

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

surokbut• 1 year ago

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.

aitchnyu2• 1 year ago

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.

moi2388• 1 year ago

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

ricardobayes• 1 year ago

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.

harvey9• 1 year ago

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.

haiku2077• 1 year ago

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

joshstrange• 1 year ago

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.

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

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