100 cose che abbiamo perso per colpa di internet

by Pamela Paul

C’era una volta una cosa chiamata una sensazione universale che avvolgeva gli esseri umani ogni volta che si trovavano bloccati in una situazione – in una fila, nel traffico, nella sala d’attesa del medico – senza avere nulla da fare, e dalla quale potevano nascere idee sbalorditive. Era un tempo in cui ci si poteva smarrire con facilità sconcertante in ogni città, perfino nella propria, e in cui non sapere se domani ci sarebbe stato sole o pioggia era del tutto un tempo fatto di numeri di telefono imparati a memoria e appuntamenti al buio, messaggi lasciati in segreteria e rullini di foto sfocate. Poi, un giorno di pochi anni fa, qualcuno ha inventato internet, e da allora tutto ciò che credevamo eterno ha smesso rapidamente di esistere.Pamela Paul ci riporta nel «Preinternettiano», l’epoca in cui nessuno aveva idea di che cosa fosse un sito, uno smartphone o un’app digitale, per farci scoprire che cosa abbiamo perso o stiamo perdendo con l’avvento dell’online. Il suo è un affascinante inventario degli oggetti, delle emozioni e delle consuetudini che, senza che nemmeno ce ne accorgessimo, sono sparite dalle nostre vite, attraverso il quale ritrovare una parte di noi che abbiamo dal telefono in cucina al timore che nessuno si ricordasse il nostro compleanno, dalle lettere scritte a mano alla libertà di non avere i genitori sempre addosso, dalle enciclopedie in volumi allo spostarsi in un luogo ignoto armati solo di una mappa sbrindellata, dall’incubo di perdere un biglietto aereo al fare conversazione con uno sconosciuto su un treno, dopo essersi guardati intensamente negli occhi.100 cose che abbiamo perso per colpa di internet ci mostra con ironia e profondità di analisi come appariva il mondo prima che chiudessimo il nostro sguardo e le nostre emozioni dentro al rettangolo di uno schermo. Un’opera illuminante, che ci invita a ripensare le nostre giornate iperconnesse perché possano tornare a riempirsi di creatività e smarrimento, lentezza ed empatia; di errori imprevedibili capaci di farci riflettere e meravigliosi gesti inutili, fatti con estrema attenzione.Mappe di carta e lettere scritte a mano, foto sfocate e segreterie telefoniche, ma anche la noia e gli sguardi di uno un affascinante inventario di come appariva il nostro mondo prima di internet e cosa ci può ancora insegnare.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, History, Self Help, Audiobook, Technology, Humor

283 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 26, 2021

About the author

Pamela Paul is the editor of The New York Times Book Review and oversees books coverage at The Times. She also hosts the weekly Book Review podcast. She is the author of six books, How to Raise a Reader, co-authored with Maria Russo, My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues, By the Book, Parenting, Inc., Pornified, and The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony. Prior to joining the Times, Paul was a contributor to Time magazine and The Economist, and her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and Vogue. Her next book, Rectangle Time, comes out in February. She and her family live in New York.

Reviews

[Joe Krakovsky · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I first saw "100 Things We've Lost to the Internet" on the shelf at the library, I thought that it would probably be full of cute nostalgia. How wrong I was. What I took away from this was that the author felt that what little we lost was offset by things being so much better now. I didn't agree, so I was going to give it a 1-star rating. That is pretty drastic, I know, but sometimes that is how books seem to be rated. It is not by literary merits but rather because of the emotions they bring forth in the reader. For instance...

If there is one phrase that makes me cringe, it is, "It is so easy, just go online." When I got laid off, I went to the unemployment office. Luckily it was a few weeks before the COVID outbreak. I could have "went online," but I chose to wait for one-on-one assistance from one of the fine folks there. Even though he didn't know me, he zipped through page after page of things that didn't apply to me, that I would have carefully read line by line in my ignorance, and still wondered if I filled it all in correctly. Afterall, I was dealing with the government.

The author praises the advantages of a cashless society. My rebuttal is that the Constitution calls for gold and silver as money for a reason. Even that fiat currency referred to as 'Federal Reserve Notes' says it is legal tender for payment so not accepting it is breaking the law. Sure, credit cards are handy, but Visa and Capital One wouldn't be around if it wasn't such a lucrative business charging interest to people who can't pay off their debt. I could just see a cashless society someday where a corrupt politician wakes up in the morning, and instead of selling one of his paintings to the leader of a foreign government, logs into his or her offshore bank and adds three zeros to the dollar amount in the account. Inflation is here and in spite of what economists are rewarded for saying, no inflation is normal or healthy for those of us veterans or elderly on a fixed income.

One thing I have to agree with was a quote she mentioned by Neil Gaiman. According to him, "Google can bring you back a hundred thousand answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one." One time I was in an online debate about drugs with someone. It was obvious that rather than speaking from experience as I was, she was merely listing links to support her argument. I thought, "You dummy, it is obvious that you have never worked in a pharmaceutical company, nor have you read 'Radium Girls,' where the author told how insurance companies used favorable (and now we know untrue) evidence from doctors that radiation didn't harm those exposed to it to avoid paying out to victims of radiation poisoning."

The author is also right about the loss of privacy on the internet too. Look at Hillary's email controversy. When she was trying to hide evidence, she not only had emails deleted but had the server acid washed. I wonder how her people made sure those messages that were delivered never saw the light of day?

All the while I was reading this I was thinking how, if such a person were in a movie, they would be the one that finds out her husband met someone online or her child was on the verge of suicide due to online bullying. In spite of claims of how everything your child does can be monitored; I have no doubt that today's youth could find ways around it if they really wanted to. These kids know their way around the digital world better than we do. Who do they want to hire for work in the computer world, somebody like the author or a 20-year-old? I wouldn't doubt that some of these kids can go into the dark web and find the right app to fool mom and dad. Raising your kids right and having a happy marriage is based on physical time spent with them and showing them that you love them and not by simply monitoring their computer usage.

In fairness to the author, it was easy to read. Many would agree with the author and enjoy it, so I will therefore bump my 1 star rating up to 2.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, deeply behind in my reviews here. My apologies.

"100 Things We've Lost to the Internet" is moving funny, astute, and awash in the Proustian Madeleines that anyone who recalls a world before the Internet will savor. (And if you are too young to remember that world, then you will view this as a brilliant explanation of why your parents miss dittos, and the wonders of a childhood of benign neglect.) It's about things, yes, (the phone in the kitchen), but what makes it such a beautiful and remarkable book is that Pamela Paul uses those totems to remind us of emotions and sensations that are now either forever transformed or forever gone (the power that came with a thick rolodex, and what that first rolodex meant). I loved this book: all carefully curated 100 chapters. Also? It makes a great gift. It is among the books I now give often to family and friends.

[Carey]

DNF at 21%

I went in thinking this would be a thought provoking meditation on the ways in which life has changed with the digital age, but it's just one self-indulgent rant after another. I myself am a baby Gen Xer - I remember a time before the internet, but it's existed for the entirety of my adult life.

I get it. Things have changed rapidly. That can be alarming or scary, but we grumble, adapt, and move on. I was already frustrated by the nostalgia in this book for things no one in their right mind misses, like getting lost, being bored, or wasting money on rolls of film full of shitty pictures you don't know are shitty for weeks or months.

But then we get to the school library and that is where I say fuck this book. Nostalgia for shushy librarians and silent libraries that acted as nothing more than moldering book repositories is gross. The library has evolved and is continuing to evolve into something better and more important than just a place to store books. I might not even be as pissed off about this as I am except that I was listening to the audio and the way the narrator spits out "media center" along with other newer terms for spaces that used to be libraries grated on me.

Nostalgia is a tricky thing. It often lies. This book wallows in it. I'm really disappointed because I wanted to like it so much.

[Anu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before I review this, people should know that I basically spend my working hours researching on and thinking about how people use the internet. Sounds fun, I know, and it is, for a large part. But also, a common refrain among my friends and me is that the internet was a mistake. I mean, we usually say this in the context of hate speech or disinformation, which is definitely not what Pamela Paul talks about here.

I should clarify, that for almost all intents and purposes, I identify as a luddite. I study the internet, but I don't much use it. I broke my phone, completely shattered it, back in 2019, and I honestly was able to survive without it for quite sometime (I have a lesser phone now). Was it difficult to be an analogue girl in a digital world? Somewhat, yes, but not really. I mean, I knew which train I had to take to get to my office, and when, although I couldn't really know if the train would be late or early on a given day. And whilst I had to lug my groceries around because I couldn't access cab services or grocery services, it was something I had done in the past anyway, so it wasn't a big deal, really. Importantly, I realised, that nothing was really life-or-death anymore. I told my co-workers that I didn't have my phone on me, so I could only access my emails or Slack channels when I had my laptop open, and people were okay with that. I mean, it had to come to my phone completely being in pieces to go on a technology diet, but it changed me. Little bit. It made me stick to my guns about not responding to my emails everyday, all the time, even if I was not working. It made me more comfortable telling people that I didn't feel comfortable being asked to be available outside of working hours for non-emergencies. My time was my time, and what I did with it was my business. Phone, or no phone.

In the 1994 movie Before Sunrise , one of the characters asks what the benefit of quicker technology actually is, if we don't use the free time for something else, something fun. Everything is instant, but people are busier than ever. I don't really think I got the point of it when I first saw the movie, but I do now.

When I was younger, in school, I had to wait till I got home to tell my parents something important, or tragic. Or, if it was really an emergency, I would have to call their office or mobile phones in the lunch break only. That's just how it was. Even better, I went to high school before smart phones, so I could bunk off and do other things, and there was no real way to find it out or stop me. I think I almost got caught once, but I got away with it by lying about the bus being late. I genuinely feel bad for all the kids these days that cannot get away with these small, white lies. I mean, you have apps that can track movement, and bus schedules are on the internet, updated almost every few seconds.

In a world dictated by Encyclopaedia Britannica, I grew up on Dorling Kindersley. In fact, on a recent family vacation, I used my DK-gained knowledge to correctly explain the difference between a beam and a bracket (I am a political scientist, not an architect). In 2009, at a book exhibition, my brother and I successfully begged our parents to buy us the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica. It sits proudly on the top rack of our nicest bookshelf at home. Little did we know, the 2010 edition was going to be the last one. It was also the prettiest edition I'd ever seen, and I even regret asking my parents for the 2009 edition. However, the question arises, how does one split the Encyclopaedia Britannica? I can never buy it for my children, should I choose to have children, and it would be unfair of me to take the edition my parents bought me (and my brother). These are questions that keep me up at night.

I used to work in a newsroom, and it was almost at the cusp of the digital revolution. It was in the early 2010s, when people were just beginning to use the internet and social media for "news" and "information". Figuring out how to reconcile the newspaper with "e-news" was a discussion that lasted days, weeks, months. Now, a decade later, it's almost impossible to believe that we lived in a time where we had to wait for the newspaper to be delivered in the morning for the news, or turn on the television for "breaking" news. My journalistic sensibilities go against this kind of 24 hour news cycle, where eyeballs dictate the news. In the television show The Newsroom , Chris Messina's character says that people will move on to a channel that is current, every second we (or they) are not current. I hate that the news "biz" has come to that. It's become okay to make mistakes and correct them on the fly. Don't get me wrong, newspapers and media houses have always made mistakes and updated corrections. It's why we have public editors and ombudspersons. But, having said that, I think that in their thirst to be updated about every single world event all the time, people have forgotten to respect the subjects of news pieces. There's a detachedness to the way we look at the world, to the way we're able to switch our outpouring of sympathies from one tragedy to another in the blink of an eye.

Curated imperfection really proliferated as the internet proliferated. Influencers, especially embraced the culture of curated imperfection, setting high, unmatchable standards that every other person continues to aspire to, even today. I'm not saying that impossible standards did not exist before the internet, they did. But, having said that, there was a widely accepted social contract that these impossible standards were, in fact, impossible, and not something I could have achieved in my middling, almost boring life. With social media, however, we've seen a lot of "just like you" celebrities. Busy, working women whose lives are imperfectly perfect, real dreams you could achieve if only you worked hard enough and aspired for them. The difference here, is that these women claim to have middling, almost boring lives, just like you, when in fact they don't. I think the thing that social media has done for me, is honestly show me how absolutely average my life is, and now that I can live with it, I'm happy about it.

I'm a younger millennial. I grew up with the internet revolution and the digital revolution and all that. I really do understand how the internet works. But, I also have the dubious distinction of trying to understand how people act on the internet, and why they act the way they act. It can get anyone jaded, that. I don't really think the internet was a mistake. At least, not all the time. I do believe that we gave up a lot of things for the convenience of the internet, and I don't know that we realise the full extent of what we gave up. I think it would do us all some good to sit back, and really think about everything we've lost to the internet. Because while we have gained a lot, we've also lost a lot.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m a fan of Paul’s NYT book review podcast, so I was excited to see she’d written a book. I enjoyed it. Paul does a good job of describing the good and the bad that has come from the massive shift the internet has brought to pretty much every part of our way of life. In Paul’s telling the changes are mostly bad, though I’m glad this book never turns into lament for “how things used to be.”

This book is very New York heavy (and sometimes very French heavy?) but I found myself relating to a lot of what she writes:

“How is it that activities that you’d never in a zillion years be roped into doing in real life - paging through an old acquaintance’s baby album, suffering through an odd slide show from Turkey - become strangely alluring online?”

And it also got me reminiscing things I probably would have never thought about again:

“That moment at the beginning of the first day of school when books were handed out - if you were lucky you got one of the shiny new ones, maybe even an updated edition, but if you were unlucky you had to write your name on the inside back cover under the name of the student who had your bio textbook last year - was a thing of the past. No getting excited or annoyed about which upperclassmen had your textbook before. No spending time trying to discern something about the previous owner by deciphering old doodles.”

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so sad. We have lost SO MUCH to the Internet. I miss most of the things Pamela Paul mentions. And now, here I am, writing on the Internet. I love to keep track of my books on Goodreads, but I still keep a written copy (something I have been doing since 1971). I do miss meeting people at workshops and conferences--everyone is looking down at a screen instead of at each other. I miss getting birthday cards and letters in the mail. I miss trying to remember what movie that actor was in or who wrote that book. I even miss cursive writing! I am sad that boys aren't reading much any more and that many schools no longer have libraries. I gave this book five stars, but I can't say that I really liked it. I guess future generations won't know what they missed. I feel sad for them.

[Kevidently · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I thought it would be funnier.

Essentially a listicle in book form, Pamela Paul's 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet felt like it should be interesting and thought-provoking, a little silly and a little profound. I LOVED her book, My Travels with Bob, about keeping track of all the books she read in a reading journal named Bob. But this? This was difficult.

Every single topic - from "Boredom" to "Working Independently" to "Social Cues" and everything in between - feels like a harangue, a dire warning that we have lost far too much by giving our souls to the internet. Zennials don't know how to type. Our ability to have closure with anything has been ripped from us. People are taking our childhood pictures and selling them on the Dark Web. There were some fun and funny parts of this book, but basically it's the same diatribe over and over again: by connecting with everyone, you connect with no one, especially yourself. Nothing is real, everything is manufactured, and everything you ever loved will be stripped away.

Certainly I agree with Paul on some of this stuff, and yes it's alarming that the internet has rendered some of our old practices obsolete so quickly. But the sort of moral panic and hectoring that crops up in so many of these entries feels a bit much for a book like this. Was it me? Was it the marketing? Was it the expectation? I thought it would be pithy and it just made me feel bad. Ironically, I found myself reading the entry about how we never read books in bed before sleep anymore in bed before sleep. I kind of regret reading this one and that's weird for me.

[Laila]

This irritated me. We didn’t “lose” birthday cards, Christmas cards, bedside reading, record albums, movie theaters, etc. You can still choose to experience those things! No, we don’t have marathon phone call sessions on the one corded family phone anymore, trying to drag the phone as far away as the cord will stretch. But that’s okay. I don’t know, I guess I wanted this to be deeper and more philosophical.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of short essays on things that the internet has removed from modern life is a very fun read. By turns wistful and funny, if you're old enough to remember the 1980's this is a treat.

[Federica Rampi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il prima e il dopo

Con umorismo accattivante e leggerezza Pamela Paul, editorialista di opinione per il New York Times, racconta la storia di come, in poco più di 20 anni, abbiamo perso le abitudini , stravolto i nostri comportamenti lo studio, il lavoro, le nostre scelte commerciali, il tempo libero
Per chi ha meno di 40 anni probabilmente il libro rappresenterà l'evocazione di una realtà strana, noiosa e magari scomoda, per i più "grandi" (come me, che ad ogni pagina ho più volte annuito) sarà l’occasione per rivivere un senso di perdita verso quegli anni che appaiono ora così distanti.
Chi ricorda più a memoria un numero di telefono?
Chi usa ancora una cartina stradale o spedisce una cartolina?

Annoiarsi ha cambiato volto, specie nei bambini, che passano da un videogioco all’altro dimenticando quanto fosse bello far lavorare l’immaginazione per ammazzare il tempo magari durante un lungo viaggio in auto; ma anche noi adulti facciamo lo stesso: in coda o nelle sale d’attesa alla chiacchierata spontanea preferiamo guardare lo smartphone.
L’intrattenimento, com’è pensato oggi, impigrisce perché non c’è più bisogno di inventarsi un passatempo.
Dietro allo schermo c’è tutto, o quasi.
Iperconnessi, abbiamo la possibilità di essere mentalmente in più posti alla volta, di interagire e leggere tutti coloro che bussano alla nostra porta virtuale cercando la nostra attenzione tra e-mail, aggiornamenti, notizie e notifiche.
Anche la punteggiatura è stata vittima di questa piccola grande rivoluzione
“Su internet, il punto fermo nella migliore delle ipotesi è un optional. Su Twitter, nessuno conclude una frase con un punto fermo, a meno di non voler fare la figura del parvenu.”

Abbracciamo Internet perché sembra incrementare la nostra autonomia, ma in realtà il mondo online non offre scelte significative, se non abbandonare il vecchio per il nuovo .

"100 cose che abbiamo perso per colpa di Internet” non è solo una nostalgica lamentela su ciò che non c’è più, perché alcune cose che si sono perse per strada non ci mancheranno affatto, come le voluminose enciclopedie gli schedari e i cataloghi cartacei, ma rimane la consapevolezza di aver almeno vissuto un’adolescenza libera dall’eccesso di informazioni e una vita con più buone maniere e soprattutto più privacy
Si, perché se ci illudiamo che il "cloud" sia qualcosa di effimero, non abbiamo fatto i conti con quante tracce digitali lasciamo.
Nel cyberspazio la parola "fine" non esiste “Internet non perdona e non dimentica neanche la più piccola delle gaffe” e in Rete gli errori durano per sempre.

[Isabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

"But, as the novelist Neil Gaiman put it, "Google can bring you back a hundred thousand answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one".

[Stephen Kiernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will make you laugh, then feel nostalgic, then feel critical, then feel wistful. It is absolutely worth reading, even if you are the most obsessed techie in miles.

Years ago I read this author's book Pornified -- which, as a polemic against the spread of internet porn, was the literary equivalent of shaking a fist at the sea. But now we can see more clearly the assets and liabilities of our increasingly digital life.

This book does not read as a polemic at all. It's more like a series of newspaper columns, whose individual entries are funny and clever, but which over time says something larger about how our society and interactions have irrevocably changed. We will not miss the know-it-all, anymore than teenagers will miss trying to chat up a love interest on a kitchen phone with the whole family listening.

But I felt that something important was lost when people sitting down for dinner started bringing their phones to the table. I miss letters to the editor, signed by an actual person using their actual name. There's much more, but I don't want to spoil it.

Even if you love Facebook, even if the first thing you do in the morning is check your phone, you will find plenty to entertain you in this book.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pamela Paul writes an essay about each of one hundred things that she feels we have lost to the Internet. Some are obvious to all of us, like flea market finds and high school reunions. Some are less so, like being late and benign neglect. All of the essays are thoughtful and engaging.

[Puty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I've got a mixed feeling with this one so probably 2.5 stars.

This book is written by Pamela Paul, an editor in New York Times. The title is... well... self-explanatory. It consists of 100 things that (the author thought) no longer existed after the internet. The vibe is... you know the has-been gen-X who always thought that their generation was cooler because they 'suffered' more as a teenager? The one that always look the younger people with pity because they capture everything with their phone and record a video during concert? Yeah if you hate that kind of vibe, please, do NOT read this book.

However, the writings are nice and as a millennial myself, there are things that let me reflect, "Aren't we all now in such a hurry? Aren't we, modern people, being too hard to ourselves by not allowing mistakes and imperfection?"

[Jt O'Neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw this reviewed somewhere and picked it up at the library. For me, it was an interesting, quick read. I like the way Pamela Paul takes a short look at 100 things that used to play a major role in our lives but now are gone or on the way out. As far as I'm, concerned, some of losses are fine. I don't care about losing the TV Guide, my checkbook, touch typing, or even figuring out who that actor is. Other losses are more painful - loss of eye contact, loss of civility. even loss of snail mail birthday cards. Granted, not all losses are lost across the board. Ms Paul highlights the loss of photo albums but you can still do that. She cites loss of school libraries but I think the essence of school libraries can easily be preserved. She suggests that phone calls are lost but, in my experience, face time calls are even more connecting and valuable than old school phone calls.

I believe that the internet has improved our lives in many ways. No doubt it has made connection easier. It has made research and knowledge more available for many. But it is useful to look at what has been lost. This book makes me wonder if human beings really know what has been lost with the arrival of the internet. Again, this is a light book but the meaning behind it is deeper to me. Ms Paul asks us to consider how the internet has affected our personal lives, our emotional selves. She throws out these 100 things but underneath that is a bigger question. Are we happy with the arrival of the internet? Are there things we want to preserve? I think it's wise to be open to change but to still have an awareness of what we both losing and gaining. This little book is a delightful beginning to that awareess.

[Lena · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 ⭐ TW: boomer energy 🥴

Interesting idea, disappointing execution. This lacked direction, with the author spending most of the book talking out of her ass.

Throughout the book, Paul constantly conflated the internet with technology in general - computers, phones, and even cameras at one point? If you're going to focus on changes brought on by the internet, maybe don't mention something that has existed since the advent of digital cameras. Kind of damages your book's credibility.

A lot of the other chapters seemed to be more her opinion than anything else. No one goes to stores anymore? As someone who works in retail, let me tell you - people are still going to stores. Buying gifts online automatically means you haven't put any thought into the gift? Literally no evidence given for that statement. People often buy gifts in person without putting in any thought, too, Pamela. And what about the internet supposedly killing touch typing and young people not knowing how to do it? Explain that one, please. The worst typists I've personally seen are boomers, so....so much for your touch typing lessons at school, I guess.

But my biggest gripe with this book is the lateness chapter. No one cares about lateness because they're happy to have some extra time on their phones? Are you for real? I've never been excited that someone is late, nor have I seen someone else react that way. What the actual fuck was this one. Seriously, someone teach this woman about the "point, explanation, example" paragraph structure. She desperately needs it.

[Jason Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This could almost be called 100 Things We've Lost to Smartphones and Social Media because that's where most of the focus is, but it wouldn't account for everything in here. And really, those wouldn't exist without the internet.


"Progress is the key to technological advancement. The process is slow, sometimes taking decades or centuries. But every now and then, technology leaps forward."

That's what happened when the internet landed for the masses in the early 90s. I believe there has been more change for humanity in the last 30 years than there has been in centuries or even millennia. I'm not referring to technological advancements in manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, whatever. We are in the middle of a revolution in communication and our brains are being rewired because of it. Many of us are heading at warp speed to a Brave New World with vapid and pointless lives, and the internet is at the root of that. Right now Smartphones and other smart technology is all the rage along with social media. AI is here now but still in its infancy. ASI is likely on the way. None of this would be possible without the internet...

And let me stop there with that line of thought. That's not what this book is about, it's just me beating that drum... again. It's easy to see the changes in humanity when you're on the outside looking in, which I am since I don't have a smartphone. This is the only social media site I'm on. I often wish I could get rid of it, but this is one of the places where I get my writing fix, so I continue to dance with the devil. I often feel like I was born 70 years too late and that I probably should've died around the time the internet was getting started. Almost all my friends say I'm an old soul. They're probably right. I'm definitely an analog dinosaur living in a digital world and probably the oldest 47-year-old you'll ever meet. I still get the local newspaper and read it every day since that's about the only place I get my news. The paper is one of the entries in here, but as Ms. Paul points out, you don't need it anymore because you've already seen all the news as you scroll through your phone. Before smartphones, those who couldn't watch cable news all day could check news sites on the computer. It's only a matter of time before newspapers have gone the way of the dodo. My local is hanging in there, but it's a shell of what it was in the 80s and 90s, and they don't deliver on Mondays and certain holidays anymore. Instead, we're encouraged to check their online edition which, to be frank, sucks. It's exactly the same as the print edition, but it's user unfriendly, at least on a PC, but it probably works better if you have a swipey thing.

Pamela Paul is a New Yorker, and you can tell she's from a different world than most of us. New York and other major urban areas are ahead of the curve for a lot of things, so some of the entries are still coming attractions for other places. E.g. receptionists. Most offices in Virginia still have them, but a few have gone to "security systems synced to databases on laptops, keypads attuned to magnetized card keys, digital handprint pads for now but perhaps soon, a James Bondian eye scan, none of which usher in visitors with so much as a 'Hello.'"

That kind of thing is happening in customer service areas at stores too. A few months ago, my pharmacy did away with keeping a person at the register. They would say hello, ask you who you were, what your prescription is, etc. In his/her place is a screen you can tap or bap or zap with your phone. Luddites like myself can use their finger (and boy did I have a finger for them the first time I saw this infernal contraption) to tap in his name and birth date and whatever. The busy bees in the work area which is in plain view studiously ignore the customer until a ding or something lets them know that he's done giving their iPad a finger diddle whereupon someone comes up to their side of the machine, taps a few things, runs back to the basket area, comes back with the prescription and says $13.96, or whatever the price is. That's the extent of the human interaction. No "how do you do," "can I help you," "nice day," "turn green," "go to hell;" just "gimme the money!" And the look you get when they see you're going to pay with cash! (This is discussed in the "your checkbook" entry). It's like you'd just asked them to hand you the Rock of Gibraltar. And then they gyp you on the change and blame the, ahem, "national penny shortage" (which is not the internet's fault and not even a real thing.)

We interrupt this review for an audio/visual demonstration of something else in this book that is playing out as I type: "wondering about the weather." My dad and stepmother just got back from the store. She's wondering if it would be okay to leave some food item in the car overnight or if it would be too cold. I'll spare you the circuitous discussion that went on for a minute or two about what would or wouldn't be considered "too cold," but eventually daddy said "well, let's see." Out came the phone, tap and swish went the fingers, and it was discovered that it will get down to 35 degrees tonight which is okay. The internet saves the day once again.

Back to my semi-planned review... and that's something else in the book, though I didn't mark it. It was mentioned in several entries related to social media. Those of us who post stuff on it (and I'm super guilty here) run everything they do through the filter of "what can I say about this on (insert chosen social media platform here)?" Being the writing junkie that I am, I no longer read strictly for pleasure because I review everything I read. It's rare that I go through a book and don't think about what I want to put in a review. That doesn't mean I still don't enjoy the book; my reviews often attest to that. But now it's more like work. Thankfully it's work I enjoy, but I wouldn't have that self-inflicted "job" if it weren't for the internet. This kind of thing happens in other areas as well. People active on social media are constantly sharing every inane detail of their lives on it, right down to taking pictures of their meal at a restaurant. What's even worse is that their friends/followers "like" the posts and make cutesy comments. I never saw the attraction to doing that when I was on Facebook but decided I should give it a try anyway. I came up with the plan just a couple days before I deleted my account 12 years ago, but unfortunately, I forgot about it until after I had eaten my supper the night I had set for deletion. Lucky for me and all my friends, two chicken legs were part of the meal, so I was able to take a picture of the bones with my fork and napkin on the plate. I'm afraid the experience didn't do a thing for me.

And this kind of segues to another entry: "vacation."



Yeah, I know. You're thinking "we haven't lost vacations to the internet, people still take them all the time." But does anyone ever get away? A real vacation, and the only one available to you until 30 or so years ago, is when you go somewhere and park it for a week. You left the friends and neighbors of your daily life, not to mention your job and coworkers, at home. When's the last time you did that? I know I had one in 1999 because I didn't have a cell phone then. I probably did it in 2000 because I never used the thing; you had to consider minutes, peak time, etc., and all that cost money. I remember calling a couple people back home in 2003, but that's mostly innocuous. In the beforetimes, people might've left the number of the motel they were staying at with a neighbor or relative in case of emergencies, and the only reason they would call you would be to inform you that your house had burned down. When my coworkers are on vacation and I send them an e-mail for something that doesn't need to be addressed until they return, I invariably get a response before they're back home, sometimes within a few minutes. Shit, a month ago one person responded while she was on her honeymoon! And for the social media crowd, there's pictures of the sites, the hotel, the pool, the meals throughout the day, and you get likes, and have conversations with the people you left behind, and they say while you're there, you've simply got to go see such and such a place, a place you might not have any interest in because you'd rather chill by the pool, but you go anyway and take a cheesetastic selfie with it in the background, and the internet gives a tumultuous cheer, and gah! Ms. Paul points all this out. The good news is you don't have to tell anyone about your vacation when you get home because they were there with you the whole time.

I don't do vacations this way... Actually, I haven't been on a real one in 16 years (just some long weekends where I travel around and inflict my company on various friends and relatives), but if I ever do go on one again, my interaction with the folks back home will be minimal because I don't have the fancy phoneputer, and I'm more than happy to leave the basic one I have in the motel room when I'm at the pool or beach or wherever. I would take it with me when out and about in case of emergencies and just hope it didn't ring or ding...

... and speaking of that, "the phone call" is another entry along with "leaving a message." I still make phone calls, but some of my friends who are my age and ought to know better don't care for them that much, and not just because it's me on the horn. They'd just rather text which begs the question "is your phone even a phone?" I'd rather talk, personally, unless it's a simple matter like "could you get some milk while you're at the store." They either can't or don't want to take a few minutes out of their busy day to discuss whatever, but they're fine texting intermittently for the next several hours, and a matter which could be handled in a two or three minute phone call goes on all day long. And woe to you if you dare to leave a voicemail. The inconvenience of making somebody stop what they're doing to check it and eat up a precious minute or two out of their day is beyond the pale! I know one person who flat out says on her message that she doesn't check them, so you'll have to text. I guess if you're not in a place where you can text (like behind a steering wheel in a moving vehicle), then tough titty said the kitty.

And to continue the phone theme, how about "knowing the number?" I combat a lot of stuff in the book for my own mental health and to keep my brain active, and believe you me it needs all the exercise it can get. One way I do this is to dial every number I use often instead of simply selecting the contact. I do this for text messages too. Eventually I memorize them. A friend of mine got in a car wreck about 20 years ago while on his way to visit his parents, an eight or nine hour drive. He was fine, but his phone was smashed. The cops or other motorists were more than happy to lend him their phones, but he didn't know a single number to call, not even his parents' because they had all gotten cell phones around the same time, and the landline of his youth had been dismissed from public and private life forevermore. This is pitiful, but I know of other people who would be in the same boat if it happened to them. I like to be in a different boat.

I knew about a lot of the entries in this book because I think about such things and observe the changes in the people around me, but since I'm on the periphery of this high-tech, internet based world, some things caught me by surprise, like "the period." It's not that I haven't noticed punctuation slip-sliding away over the past couple decades; I have. I still use it, even in texts (and overuse it, actually, since I'm a comma-splice champion), but I didn't know that using a period is considered a form of aggression among kids, though apparently an exclamation point isn't...



Yeah... A period coming from me isn't an indication of aggression. It's not even a microaggression, but I'll be more than happy to supply a macroaggression. Get over it, you silly snowflake! Ah, dammit; I misused the exclamation point. Another senseless accident! Dad-blameit, I did it again! AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

I could offer an opinion on most the entries in here, but I think I've done enough. There was one notable absence for me, though. Yeah, I know. There's always an asshole in the comments section of every list article going "well, what about this? And this? And that? How about whatever?" That's not my intention, and I'm not suggesting Ms. Paul change the 100. It's drawn from her own experiences and research. I'm sure her age (mid-gen-X), gender (female), current home (New York City), and profession (columnist/journalist/editor/etc.) influenced it, but there's one thing that's left this world due to the internet that boys would notice much sooner than girls: the arcade. That's not intended to be a sexist remark. Of course girls can play video games too, but I spent a lot of time (not to mention a lot of quarters) at the arcade in my youth, and I'd say 95+% of the kids at the machines were boys. Before the internet and the miracle of fiber optics, if you wanted to play video games with your friends, you had to go to the arcade. Later when consoles came out, you could go to someone's house who had one, but they were subpar to the big machines at the arcade and offered no credible threat to the industry. Now you don't even have to leave your house to play the same game with your friends or perfect strangers. You put on a headset and join a game with any number of people; it's no longer limited to two or four.

When I was in college, you could play computer games over the internet. There was a chat feature, but you had to type your messages into it. I used to play Unreal Tournament with a friend who lived somewhere else, and we would talk to each other, but that was because we had a landline phone handset chocked between the ear and shoulder. The other people in the same game usually hated us, or at least me, because I didn't take it very seriously and was just having fun, and I wasn't always the best teammate. One time my friend was on the other team and coming after me specifically. He said "I have you now," whereupon I said "Oh, no you don't," and I ran off the side of the world to my death. That threw him into a fit of hysterics for some reason, and we both just started taking dives off the side and trying to watch the other until they exploded. The chat lines indicated that such activity did not endear us to our teammates, just what in the blue the fuck did we think we were doing? Ah, good times, good times, but that's due more to the camaraderie with that particular friend and not the game and its internet capabilities; we were always cutting up whether or not there was a video game involved, and there usually wasn't.

I asked my nephew about modern video games a couple of days ago, and much has changed since I was a kid. Apparently nobody plays against the computer anymore, at least not for sports and first-person shooter games, and that seems to be all there is now. Or maybe that's all he likes. These kids can still talk shit with each other, not to mention much older adults who never grew out of the habit, but they will never know the joy of kicking the machine when it started to "cheat," or physically elbowing the dude next to you so he couldn't Shoryuken your ass into the dirt.



The elbow jabs sometimes happened whether you knew the other player or not. Sometimes y'all became friends for the afternoon, or at least frenemies, and you'd try different games. Sometimes one of you would move on, and that would be that, and you'd start kicking it with someone else. Usually conversations would come out of the smack-talk. Sometimes it went a bit further and you found out when the other guy was normally there, and y'all would try to meet up again on another day. The point is there was a human connection at the arcade that doesn't happen in the cybersphere regardless of what anyone is saying. Something gets lost every time you put another screen or layer of technology between two people.

And speaking of "getting lost"... Okay, it looks like I lied about not mentioning anymore entries. Anyway, people don't get lost anymore if you have a GPS, and just about everyone does (except me and my old-school ilk). Shit, getting lost on the back roads in the mountains from time to time and having to pull out my map to find my way somewhere was half the fun of taking the trip. If nothing else, it gave me a story to tell.

I think this book should be required reading for everyone. A lot of people are unaware of what's happened to them and their brains; that the more they rely on smart technology, the dumber they become. The changes are slow and insidious. This book subtly points that out, and if you spot it, you got it. Or at least you have a chance of doing something about it if you feel so inclined. Not everyone does, and that's fine.

Aside from that, this was also a very entertaining read. Ms. Paul writes well, and I loved the irony she alluded to with snarky sarcasm. I agree with the list, though I sometimes disagreed with Ms. Paul's conclusions. She doesn't get too judgy, though, and sometimes she offers no judgement at all; she lets the reader decide whether or not the thing lost was worth losing. The internet has, after all, given us a lot, but I personally think we've lost more than we've gained.

[Greg Talbot · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Connection" may be the most loaded word of the post-internet age. Pamela Paul describes 100 things in our pre-wired world that explore the ways we connected with materials (magazines, Christmas cards) and experiences (making memories, starting up life in a new city) . Written in skimmable, and easily digestible chapters, this catalog provides a mixed bag of the world we lost, and the one we are in currently.

The book has a fun, unhurriedness about it, and it is agreeable in the content it provides. It hardly scratches the dark ways social media undermines mental health , political civility, and truth. That's a different kind of book, but the items Paul focuses on are largely Internet 1.0. And it's a very deliberate choice, but she explores what we missed, instead of what is gained through the integration of technologies.

There is more than surface here, and there are a lot of things to ponder of the lost world. Our remembered selves are more fragmented, our social media more determinate, and our relationships largely more distant and alienated. Still, I think this book could have provided deeper trend analysis...sharing deeper insights into the world we lost. Also, the technology that has created the change...network speeds, social media, cell phone platforms, is never explored.

A fun read. Something to click open and scroll through, when you can't find a paper magazine in sight.

[Lisa J Shultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this list quite interesting. I believe it will appeal most to baby boomers, and I found it thought provoking particularly in regards to online presence and interaction. Kids of baby boomers will probably find it humorous.
A few of the listings, I still have or do such as write checks and create photo albums (although substantially less). I love paper maps and will continue to use them for trips, but I do utilize my GPS when driving around the city to an unfamiliar location. And I will absolutely continue to read a paperback book in bed before I go to sleep and send a Christmas card with a letter each December.
I am okay with losing bad photos and traditional cameras and film printing procedures. Losing old tech like fax machines and extra equipment is just fine by me.
I do miss TV Guide, penmanship, memory (such as remembering people's phone numbers), productivity (too much time wasted dealing with email), and phone calls.
I enjoyed thinking about the 100 things. Now I would like to see a list of 100 things we have lost to Covid...

[High Plains Library District · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short essays by Pamela Paul will be of interest to readers of a certain age who remember what life was like before the Internet. Boredom, bad photos, the family meal, a good night’s sleep, TV Guide, your checkbook, figuring out who that actor is, movie theaters, card catalogs, maps, and humility—all these and more are on the list of things she maintains have been lost to, or at least radically changed by, the Internet.

While Paul, former editor of The New York Times Book Review, does include some things she’s happy we’ve lost, the vast majority in this jeremiad provoke in her expressions of regret, which range from concise social criticism to vague and fond nostalgia. Born in 1970, Paul is not as old as some of her admittedly “grumpy old man” opinions might lead you to believe, and a number of her complaints can actually be laid at the foot of technology other than the Internet. These minor quibbles, though, don't significantly detract from often thought-provoking observations.

[mahesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have expected this book to be thought-provoking. But it was just a general rant without detailed logic behind it. personally, I have lost many things with the advent of the internet. But this book was boring to read.

one thing I've lost to the internet.

1. I can no longer be the stupid one, There are millions brainless than me on the internet. Internet deprived me of the ability to be stupid.

Read-only 50% of the book, It's too boring to continue. Essays have good context, but no good content provokes dull-witted brain of mine.

[Sukrit · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very starrey-eyed look on the things we've lost to the Internet, bordering on fogeyism.

I agree with the author on big lifestyle changes that were probably "lost" to the Internet (e.g., boredom, creativity, being lost and finding new places, physical music collections), but some of the things we've "lost" I believe everyone was happy to get rid of! (e.g., living with the uncertainty of who an actor in a movie is, flipping through pages of encyclopedia to find information)

[Brianna Kinley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn’t my typical read but I’m glad I found it while scrolling through NetGalley. Most of Paul’s list was way before my time, so I got to relive those while reading through the list. Most of the things he discussed are important concepts, since we’ve slowly been losing certain aspects of life thanks to the Internet.

[Jed Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have thought of many of these but when you see them all together it’s compelling. You also realize trying to explain this to younger people who have no context for how things used to be is like speaking a different language. 😂

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing. I'm glad that I got to experience most of the things that are now "lost" to the internet, but I do feel the need to confess that I read this on my phone by downloading the eBook via...the internet. :)

[Matthew Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the book Technopoly, Neil Postman says that "technological change is neither additive nor subtractive. It is ecological." It is fruitless to ask whether the internet, or the steam engine, or the printing press, or the wheel were "good" or "bad" for society. But new technologies do not add or detract; they transform. Society after the steam engine is fundamentally different than before.

So instead of asking whether technologies are good or bad, we should instead ask questions like: in what way did this technology reconfigure human relations? How did it change labour conditions? How did it change the way we communicate? What was lost? What was gained? What problems did it solve, and what new problems did it engender?

100 Things We Lost to the Internet is an earnest attempt to answer these questions. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen another book like it. It feels so nonjudgemental. It takes the internet as neither hero nor villain. The internet didn’t make our lives better or worse, it simply (simply!) reconfigured society in countless ways we are still only beginning to understand. I think that this idea is more profound than any of the actual chapters in the book, which are mostly just breezy and nostalgic.

There were a few sad moments—for example, realizing that school libraries are a dying breed that are being replaced by computer labs—and a few fun revelations—for instance realizing that Siri trains us not to say please or thank you. It was also valuable to think about the absolute impossibility of travelling before the internet. You just….bought your travel tickets…at a…what, a kiosk? And coordinated with people how? Pay phones? Did people just show up places and wait for people? And navigated how? Using physical maps? It’s kind of inconceivable to think about now.

Another realization for me was that a lot of the changes that are supposedly due to the internet are actually due to the iPhone and social media. I think we sometimes overrate the importance of the internet and underrate the iPhone. Putting a phone and alarm clock and camera and calculator in our pockets enabled something that, to me, feels radically different than having access to the same tools on a desktop computer. Being able to photograph and document the world around us so easily I think has led to a fairly profound collective change in the way we view life—as something to be captured and re-lived, as something to be entered into the historical record, as an ongoing film in which we are the main or supporting characters. To me, this is not quite a feature of “the internet”, though of course the internet played a major role in making it possible.

In sum: fun book! Worthwhile to get you to meditate on the theme of the transformations wrought by the internet, but somewhat forgettable in its specific details.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was written immediately before, during, and after 2020, so I think our society has already started to correct some of the errors Paul points out, but this is still a nostalgic and eye-opening exposé of just how pervasive an effect the Internet (particularly Web 2.0, with social media and similar interactive platforms) has had on first-world culture. That all sounds like it requires a heavy philosophical treatise, but this book really is 100 interesting little chapters each focused on something analog that was once a given part of everyday life.

The following may seem like a random and sexist takeaway, but the tidbit I found most telling was that the Internet was largely designed by young men; as such, it prioritizes money, power, and instant gratification and shapes the behavior of its users accordingly. Had the developers been more demographically balanced, Paul implies, they might have tempered these tendencies with other qualities that, while part of the human psyche, are less visible online. This is probably a slight overgeneralization as of course many young men are not like this, but it did help explain some of the stark differences between virtual and real-world life.

Also, I think the author would be proud that I discovered this book the old-fashioned way, by spotting it on the library holdshelf waiting for someone else. :)

[Sarah Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this more than I expected! Even though it’s basically a book that swims through nostalgia for a time when tech was slower and less intrusive, it also was a clever way to illustrate how our current toxic relationship with tech is fairly recent. The stories of tech-free life was so inspiring, that I took myself to dinner and didn’t look at my phone for the entire meal, instead just sitting and observing. Maybe I’m just growing up and turning the person who says “well, back in my day…” but I’d recommend this as an easy read, or a god gift book.

[Audrey Hart Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes you want to burn your laptop, smash your phone, and scream into the void of the internet. It’s a weirdly upsetting book. It had me wishing I was back talking to my friends on the kitchen phone yelling at my siblings that it was in fact my turn to use it. It had me wishing vacations felt like vacations with no emails or phones. This book really pulled at my heart strings.

[Iva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe it is my choice to actually still use some of the things Pamela Paul says are lost. I still use Scrabble tiles, my trusty Rolodex and many others. Her observations are interesting to debate, but I think it was hard to come up with 100. I particularly liked parent's undivided attention and didn't agree with encylopedia. And of course I miss the card catalog!