[flaglady47]

“As for BOR, I don’t watch him, I think he’s an ass. I really don’t think you understood my point if you are comparing me to him, but that requires more than ‘U no WTF sup’ levels of English comprehension.”

Actually it’s you who missed my point. BOR constantly is ragging about the evils of the Internet. However I actually agree with you on one point. BOR is an ass.

[Smokin' Joe]

You really did miss my point. The internet just is. It is neither evil nor righteous, it either functions or it doesn't, but it is a tool. It is incapable of being evil or righteous, in and of itself. It can be a source of amusement, of provision, of information, or vehicle of mayhem: it is a tool, and the hands which wield it will determine what it is.

That said, the technologies I seem to be railing against are not what I am railing against so much as the time and place of their employment.

I would no sooner be texting while driving down the highway at 70 than I would target shoot in church. Neither is the appropriate venue for the use of the respective technology.

People are showing signs of addictive behaviour when you see young men in their twenties blow off the responsibilities of a $30/hr job to be goofing off with the smartphone.

People have also lost communications skills as a result of being able to hide behind the electronic buffer that insulates them from consequences of and for their comments.

And the technology which should make people more careful what "information" they disseminate has instead enabled the careless and malicious to smear others (especially kids--teens) with incredible efficiency, while it has removed from their reality so much as a smack in the face for derogatory or slanderous remarks (which would have been a likely result if the remark had been made in person).

So yes, I think the use of the technology has in many cases led to a more crass, uncaring, and vicious version of humanity in the circles which use it thus because they suffer no direct or immediate consequences for the character assassinations they perform.

If you do not see that, you are indeed fortunate. But no one has to be a Luddite to decry the cultural coarsening which has resulted. It isn't the internet which is evil, it is a number of its users which put it to evil use.

And once again, I ask you to please quit comparing me to someone I am not, if for no other reason than it coloring your interpretation of my comments.