Has the internet been a net positive or negative for humanity?

[Vinther1991]

I think the internet has had a net negative effect on mankind.
While the access to information has become so much easier, that is not exclusively positive. Too much misinformation gets spread, and people eat it up, and even real information is not something we should be flooded with 24/7. And then there are all the other negative things. I have literally met people who’s brains have been completely ruined by the internet. Boredom has become rare, even though that is a very important thing for the brain, now we have constant entertainment, and often poor entertainment such as doom scrolling. People seem more lonely than ever and they fragment themselves into smaller groups. It has made us more divided. Privacy is also gone, as is the free market, now a handful of companies just own everything. And soon AI is so good that we will be bombarded with even more garbage information that is not even made by humans. We won’t even be able to tell what is real and what is not anymore.

So yeah, society in the second half of the 20th century seemed to be heading the right way - the internet put an end to that. The internet mostly worked well from 1991-2007 or something, before smart phones and social media. Now it’s mostly a burden.