For me it’s calculating. Too many people put math into their search engines and not their calculator.
Asking what people use the internet for that can be done just as easily offline.
Chat
I can’t shout loud enough for people 900 miles away to hear me
Buy a plane ticket (but buying a ticket offline the day of is suspicious)
I only buy my plane tickets at the airport on the day of travel with handfuls of cash pulled from a carrier bag while wearing a blood-stained shirt. I punctuate that start of every sentence by slamming my first on the desk and the end of the sentence with “goddamnit”.
I bet you aren’t picky. Just the next flight out of the state is fine.
Practice, practice, practice.
Not sure about 900 miles, but you can avoid shouting by… learning sign language and lip reading and get a telescope.
learning morse code so you can use blinking light. learning smoke signalling.
Get a pigeon or 2.
Searching the filesystem. There’s no reason Windows Search needs to access the internet. Fucking Bing.
That’s not true, all my files are stored on onedrive nowadays, which is super fast and responsive. Oh wait… it’s actually slow and laggy and randomly deletes stuff from your pc and you’re not even allowed to give your files perfectly normal names like .aux files in a LaTeX project.
It took 5 minutes to get my father in law to open teamviewer because he kept clicking on the first result which for some reason brought him to the teamviewer website instead of opening the fucking software he had installed already.
And you know what? I can’t blame him at all
At least we have Everything for local search.
Convenient indexed search was the only real improvement Windows made since XP and now they’ve ruined it. Windows XP is once again superior.
It does what now? Why would it do that?
it does what now
It’s been doing it since Windows 8.
It helps use Microsoft’s Windows monopoly to promote Bing.
I imagine that at some point the EU antitrust people might get grouchy about that.
It’s just a search bar located in the start menu and on the task bar, that combines local search with web results. For pro users it is pretty terrible, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many regular users like it. You still have a normal local file search from within the file explorer.
No we don’t. It keeps opening web pages that are completely irrelevant.
If you’re on Lemmy, I would wager you’re not part of the “average users” that were referred to.
Reading- I am absolutely horrible at this. I’ll read anything and everything online, but never make the time to read a physical book.
Reading online fanfiction is free. Sure, the quality varies, but I can quit any time I want. I just don’t want to.
Reading anything online is free if you’re slightly motivated.
Recently I was sitting in a bus for hours. My Steam Deck was already empty. Bravely, I decided to finally continue reading Dune. I was enjoying the experience (after the initial confusion from forgetting who everyone was). But somehow, despite being interested in what was written, my brain constantly wanted more stimulation. To grab the slate of glass that provides endless dopamine. To click buttons. To have a constant stream of simple information.
I’m kinda scared tbh. This shit is an addiction, and I’m addicted. But most other people around me seem just as much or even more addicted. What happened to just being able to do something for an hour without feeling the need for different stimulation. We’re all poisoning or minds until we’re incapable of paying attention for more than a few seconds.
I also do this. But I do not necessarily think it as a bad thing.
I do not need to finish the book in one sitting, it’s fine to wander, I usually just just went on a tangent on a relevant topic though. Reading for an hour is fine, as is a 5 minute session.
Maybe immersing myself reading books just not that fun for me. But I can sit for hours studying music even without touching my instruments, just reading the chart and analysing the harmony and what not. I think reading like any other skill, needs training and I just haven’t give it enough time.
I’m a late millennial, and like it or not I’m used to being able to access relevant context and information with just a click (like Wiki).
If your addiction is reading books on a device, that’s not really a problem. You’re still reading.
No it’s more just browsing social media liek Lemmy or doen specific Reddit communities that aren’t here. As a kid I used to be able to read books easily, but it’s become way harder with all this “easy” dopamine around
What’s the problem with that? You’re still reading, it’s not like you aren’t improving yourself.
I mean, even if you’re reading smut, it’s still good for you from a physical and mental health perspective because reading strengthens your mind, helps you empathize with others, and also reduces your stress.
I do this because all too often book print is tiny whereas I can adjust font size on a digital page.
I love physical books, but accessibility is sometimes a problem.
Large type books are a thing. (And a plug for the free libraries perhaps in your area. Which may also have e-books.)
Excellent points :) I do use Libby through my local library for reading e-books so it’s a great suggestion.
Whacking off
Analog masturbation just hits different. Or so I’ve been told
Personally I prefer the full range of motion offered by analogue.
How does one do that online?
You haven’t seen the latest chatGPT update?
Look up The Handy
Masturbating.
Masturbating would imply physical genital stimulation, something that the Internet cannot perform.
Wait are there really not like automated fucking machines connected to the internet?
Like no one has tried making vr porn and integrating it with some kind of mechanism/robotic arm or something?
If something like that hasn’t been made humanity has surprised me and also I think I have an invention or two to design and patent lol
Edit: Looked up “internet connected vibrator” and yeah they definitely exist. Looks like some “Long Distance sex toys” are capable of being operated by/through the internet (imagine seeing a sex toy show up while scanning through local iot devices lol).
So yes, it appears it is possible (though I’d imagine uncommon) for people to use the internet directly to masturbate.
Teledildonics.
Apparently they can also help you cheat at chess.
If you’re gonna use that logic, then there’s nothing you can do on the internet, because you still need your physical body to interact with the device.
true, you got me
Store important telephone numbers on your phone. No need to do a google search everytime you call your doctor/dentist/mechanic/whoever.
Woah now, maybe I like googling my mom’s office line every time she doesn’t answer her cell phone! I actually never even thought of saving it
But I might want to not use this doctor for my yearly specialty visits for the first time in over a decade!
Think.
To check whether it’s raining
- Store passwords.
- Gaming. Some of it at least.
- Socializing
Store passwords.
I gotta disagree. It’s much harder to do this well offline. Losing access to a password database would be detrimental, so it’s not something I recommend doing purely locally.
huh, somebody better tell this to every major fortune 500 company.
Calculators. Why use the Google calculator, when there’s one pre-installed in every device you own.
Usually convenience if you’re on a computer and already have a browser open.
But even then half the time I pull my phone out to use the calculator app instead. And I don’t think I’ve ever used a browser as a calculator while on my phone.
To turn off and on light bulbs
I do this on my intranet with home assistant, looks like I flew just under the radar
Oh, yeah, my Home Assistant setup is fucking monstrous but also, crucially, self-hosted. Why the fuck do I want my thermostat and radiators to be talking via a datacentre in another country?
But that would require getting up off my sofa and walking across the living room.
Remotes exist
Translating and dictionary, see the app Aard 2, you download Wiktionary in your preferred language (hoping it’s available) and it’s all in your phone.
Porn
Finding books. I have no idea why I do that, when there’s a bookstore I really enjoy right across the lot from me, but i’ll literally browse book reviews for 30 mins before wandering over there and just… buying whatever looks good.
Total waste of time, I didn’t value the opinions of the reviewers in the first place, and the process is always inconclusive.
