Few things have had a greater impact on human society than the internet; the ability to communicate and share data across the whole world virtually instantly changed almost every aspect of life.

While it has both good and bad aspects, do you feel the internet has overall been a net positive or negative for us as a species?

Positive. At least I think so.

It would, for example, be much harder to study and share knowledge around the world without the internet.

Without internet I could have not:

- Make decade old friends I still keep in contact
- Meet my current boyfriend
- Keep in touch and following the life of my family members after I moved
- Started my masters during a pandemic
- Being able to work from home
- Probably coulnd't even find a Job in tech, since most need internet to exist
- Couldn't use online services, shopping, banking
- Keep the vast majority of my hobbies
- Learn english, and using english to learn the huge amount of knowledge and content produced every day all around the world

I can only say my life would have been much more lonely, sad, unfulfilling, poorer and and financially deprived without internet

I voted positive

It's a mixed blessing, to be sure, but I would say positive. It expanded my ability to work and to reach outside of the evangelical Christian social circles in which I grew up and never really fit into.

Internet itself was positive, social media negative.

For now and at least a decade in the future, for all it has provided up to this point, it was a massive positive.

But as people are becoming, and already are, far too depedant on it, and it keeps being more weaponized by a few bilionaries into the biggest form of social control and manipulation mankind has ever faced, it's going to be a massive negative eventually, with the potential to literally reset us back in time as society and it's definitely going to cause civil and international wars too.

At first, it was a net positive. Back in the 90's and early 00's. Then social media happened and now it's so much a net negative that it would be better off if some hacker blew the whole fucker to pieces forever.

Throughout the combined history of the internet, probably 51-55% positive but the rest negative.
Information, entertainment, communication and such are more open because of the internet.
But certain internet activities cause addiction, hatred and so on. If we're not careful, the internet can destroy parts or most of humanity more than it already has.

No online multiplayer? no downloading games from stores online?  No netflix, no youtube, twitch...
No ordering items online (shopping)? and having it shipped to yourself... remote work (for those that can).
Not to mention even something like this forum?
Looking up recipes for food... or fact checking something, your unsure of.

How is this even a question?

I feel like social media can be questioned.
The internet as a whole? how?

Next Week is POE1 (path of exile) 3.27 release date.
I'm once again going in for a new season :)
And greatly looking forwards to that. 
(that would not be possible without the internet)

Positive by far

We can't function without it nowadays