The internet kind of ain't shit.

I mean what it brings to the table is amazing: knowledge and information, communication, entertainment, etc., things that are both easily recognized for its usefulness and widely accepted as positives are now instantly and easily accessible to anybody with a device that has a connection. The not so amazing things, i.e., the negative aspects of the internet (I'm sure you can quickly think of a few), get a lot of attention and rightfully so. Instead of writing about its negative qualities, I'm going to turn my attention towards the thoughts "is it really amazing? Why is it amazing? How is it amazing? What makes it amazing compared to others?" Maybe not those exact phrases, but just taking some time to consider why the positives are considered to be such a positive and not just taking it at face value. Because if the internet was this revolutionary thing bringing about great things onto the world, why doesn't it feel like it, shouldn't its positive impact be more obvious.

Knowledge, information, communication, entertainment, shopping, really everything that is being provided by or done on the internet isn't exactly new.

With the internet those tasks are done primarily through search engines, large-language models (LLM), messaging apps, social media (also apps), streaming services (additional apps), online shopping apps and delivery service (more apps). Really whatever it is you want, you can probably find an app or site that sufficiently fills those desires.

Books, libraries, phone calls, letters, movie theaters, television, radio, stores, malls, and more for the most part offers everything that the internet currently does. Obviously all of these still exist, albeit at a reduced scale, but functionally they are about the same.

The main difference is time.

Sending a letter takes at least a few days, a text message is instant. Books have to be sought after, libraries explored, both can be quickly found online through searches. You have to be at a movie theater or in front of a television set to make use of it, while a movie or show can be on your phone and by your side at all times. You can go to a store, walk through its sections, and buy something or you can go online search, decide, and buy in a lot less time.

Time is reduced through eliminating the physical aspects by converting it into data that can instantly be transferred through the internet. In other words, by removing the space component, it is able to shed a lot of the time needed to perform these tasks. A book both takes up space and carries a weight, as do DVDs, as do clothes, while data takes up little to nothing of either. These physical "limitations" curb the total options available in a store, stored on a shelf, and packed in a bag. Now with it all going digital, you can get everything, anywhere, anytime.

Maybe it makes more sense to think of this section as "What does space offer?"

To start, space is basically a measuring unit that we use constantly in everyday life. We when look at furniture, we see space being used, when we look between furniture we see space not being used, we may not make a mental note of it, but we know it intuitively. It's dumb to say, but space applies to every physical thing, whether that space is good or bad is based on our own evaluation of a situation. If someone was sick, space in between is good as it will help prevent the sickness from spreading. If space is a distance that needs to be overcome, say through travel, it is a timely hassle and an obstacle.

When we send a letter, it takes days for it to be received. A text, message, or email, can send the exact same contents of a letter instantly. Before the telephone, letters were the main form of communication between people. It would take a while, much longer than now, for letters to be sent and received. Because the carrying time to send and receive a letter was so long, thoughts were pondered, sentences carefully crafted, and words scrupulously chosen. A lot more time and effort was put into communicating compared to the methods of today. Now, letters are no longer the main form of communication, but is still a mainstay in birthday and holiday celebration. There is an intimacy that comes with from letters that's not shared in the monotonous text wall of messages and emails. The steps are simple: sender buys or makes a letter, writes their message, and mails it. Doesn't seem like much, but each step represents a symbol of effort that is felt by the recipient when they receive, open, and read the letter. While text, email, messaging services bring instant communication, by eliminating space to do so, it has also loses a lot of its weight.

Beethoven, born in 1970, started playing the piano at age 5. In 1782, at the age of 11, he composed his first solo piano piece. At age 28, he started losing his hearing, and by age 44 or 45 (1815) he was completely deaf. I'm not a piano person, or even a musical person for that matter, but even still I'm aware of his work (at least the famous ones), and that he had hearing problems in his life. What I didn't know was how much of that work was done when he had already developed hearing issues and even some coming from when he was completely deaf. Symphony No. 9, one of the biggest achievements in music history, was composed between 1822 and 1824, 7-9 years after he had gone completely deaf. That was done completely deaf and many other pieces were done with major hearing issues. How does one create music, something we associate with hearing, without being able to hear? Through his sense of touch, he had spent so much time playing, he understood the sounds of the vibrations, all he needed to do was find ways to feel it1. The sense of touch, that comes with space, allowed for Beethoven to understand music beyond just sound. This secondary effect, is lost with the transition to digital.

In Japanese, the character 間 is called ma meaning "between" or "interval". In Japanese art this represents the empty space. Filmmaker and animator Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli when describing it to film critic Roger Ebert, "he clapped his hands three or four times. 'The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it's just busyness, but if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have constant tension at 80 degrees all the time you just get numb.'"2

Ogata's Irises at Yatsuhashi has a base depiction of a bridge over irises. The empty space is unbounded, there is no right answer to what is supposed to be there. This means that starting the base depiction of a bridge over irises, the empty space around it is freely taken up by the viewers imagination, causing them to contemplate the picture, ultimately, giving a more intimate experience.

In both movies and paintings, the intentional gaps allows for the audience to immerse themselves and further resonate with the work.

So "what does space offer?"

A lot that we don't realize.

Access.

If you are reading this, that is an access that would never happened without the internet. It is often said that "its a small world," but it's still pretty big, the odds of us meeting are slim to none. Even if we did, I doubt this topic would come up. But the internet creates a space where information can be easily transmitted. I just have to put something out there, and it can be found by anyone, regardless of the real life physical distance between us.

Before wikipedia, social media, and appapedia, those services were bounded to a physical entities. Wikipedia has the encyclopedia, social media has in person conversations and news, apps such as streaming services have TV/DVDs/etc. This access also allows us to more freely spend our time. Instead of having to watch a show at a specific time, tethered to a location in front of a TV. With apps, we can now watch the show anytime, if we'd like, still in front of a TV, or anywhere else as long as we have access to a internet device with a screen.

Want to watch something, stream it, wonder who the actor is, pause and look it up, get bored, watch something else, get bored again, maybe switch over to social media. When a want pops into our head, there is pretty good chance that it can be promptly fulfilled.

There is no break or buffer, no inherent 間, that forces us to consider and appreciate what we are doing. There is just a device with access to everything that can quench our desires. With that newfound ability, the value of time, through the removal of effort and structure, is devalued.

Honestly it varies. If it were a straightforward change where only difference is time spent, then yes, obviously. But it's not, the little things that come with carrying out the physical task does have an impact. Individually, each task is probably not substantial and most likely barely registrable in the moment, but over time it adds up. Hypothetically with the time saved, you could do other things that fill those gaps; But if you aren't that aware of them before, how are you going to be able to adequately fill them now?

Online you can find the summary, characters, plot, and themes of a book and learn them in short amount of time. Characters, plot, themes are important parts in the makeup of a book, but does simply knowing those things even matter? Its not a test, the value in reading a book doesn't come from being able to answer questions about it.

It comes from thinking about it. Thinking about the characters, the interactions, the themes, and concepts as each page is turned and the story unfolds itself. By immersing oneself in a book, we make connections to other thoughts and expand our worldview while also providing mental fertilizer for future thoughts. There is no real way around it as the intricacies of a book can not be shortened into a summary since it is the sum of the whole book. This is essentially the difference between knowing and understanding, reading the summary will let you know what the book is about, reading the book will give you an understanding of the book.

Can you get by without reading books and relying on surface level summaries, yes, without a doubt. In a strict sense, 10 minutes of reading instead of 10 hours, does in fact save time, about ten hours. But the in between that provides a lot of value will be lost in the process.

It does save time when performing a task, and if completing a task is the only objective, then yeah, the internet saves a lot of time. But I do think there are enough secondary effects to force one to at least consider if they are really "saving" time.

In the 100 meter dash, 8 people line up, start at the same time and try to be the first to run 100 meters. In this, speed is the most important thing. That's sort of the whole point of it, to see who is the fastest. Outside of races, It's not quite clear to me how often or even why speed is that important.

The "instant" factor of the internet is most seen in communication via messaging, text, and emails. But how often does it being instant matter? Speed being an important factor is true for things where one part is highly prioritized over anything else. For emergency communication, the only part that matters is getting help. It's a very specific task, that leaves little for interpretation. Even then, speed is only the second most important factor. The first being "HELP EMERGENCY", the content of the message. Without the content, nothing is communicated. Yes speed makes instant methods superior to slower ones in some cases, but ultimately its about the communicating the content. In the case of an emergency, the content is simple, "HELP EMERGENCY", but most of the time its not that easy.

If communicating is about the content, what allows one to best receive or understand that content? How does speed play into this?

Understanding things is difficult but the method for understanding content is straightforward, you spend time thinking about it. You may not be right or end up fully understanding it, but by spending time thinking about it, you get a better feel for it. It's an example of "practice makes better."

The difficult part of understanding things is taking the time to think about it.

When you send a text, it gets received right away. If one end of a spectrum is the letter where you know there will be days/weeks/months before receiving a response, the other end is instant messaging where a response can come at any time. Both letters and texts come with a pressure (social expectation) to respond, but the response time expectation are vastly different.

With the letter the pressure is never felt beyond an obligation to respond. You can take your time composing your thoughts knowing that the recipient won't be expecting anything for a while. With instant communication the pressure is felt beyond an obligation to respond. It is also felt through lack of time buffer (speed) when making the response. In texts the lack of time buffer thrusts a pressure of timeliness onto the recipient potentially causing stress and anxiety. This could lead to the content not being fully read and for responses to be rushed. In social media comments, the lack of buffer allows for people to comment with little to no consideration of the content. In both cases, the instant factor is an active force against taking time, which ultimately leading to a degradation in the quality of response.

This is a blogging site, a site that exists to communicate, as such the speed factor of the internet is double-edged. The site wouldn't be a widely accessible thing without the speed of the internet, but the communication aspect is hindered by the speed of the internet.

I'm not too certain. This stuff is bigger than any one site can fix (if it even needs a fix) and is too complex for their to be a "correct" solution. The only really pathway to mitigate these tradeoffs, at least to me, is to try to impose the properties of the physical world onto the digital world and try to get the best of both.

Data is data, and it will always be that; a digital information carrier that can passed instantaneously through the internet. This means itself can't be physical, but physicalness can be emulated by applying time to data. If an article takes 5 minutes to read, then comments can't be accessed until five minutes are up. This leaves just the article and the reader with no distractions. If they finish reading early, then they have some time to think about what they read. If they haven't finished after five minutes and impatiently jump to the comments, at least they presumably read some of it before doing so, which is better than nothing. This essentially makes time a unit of effort, which to me is as good of a measurement as possible, and a worthy concept to build around.

By structuring everything around time, the site can hopefully bring the qualities of space to the internet.