The internet is too big

The case for returning to a smaller version of the web

A laptop.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Dedy Setyawan/iStock, wabeno/iStock, The7Dew/iStock)

One of my fondest memories of the internet involves me sitting alone in a neighborhood restaurant, watching the snow fall. It was a Friday evening and I was feeling lonely, so I tweeted about it. Then two friends, Tim and Robin, people I hadn't even met at that point, "kept me company" as I ate alone, chatting with me on Twitter while the snow fell.

Such memories feel almost anachronistic now. Small, quiet, moments of intimacy seem out of step with the massive machine that is the contemporary social web. Yet strangely, it's the very size of networks like Facebook and Twitter that facilitates the rare intimacies that still emerge. Without the internet, I'd never have friends thousands of miles away, or connect with family scattered across the globe. Sheer scale is also what allows the internet to be such an enormous repository of information: The fact that you can look up almost any topic on Wikipedia or YouTube is a function of just how many people use and collectively contribute to those platforms.

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Navneet Alang

Navneet Alang is a technology and culture writer based out of Toronto. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, New Republic, Globe and Mail, and Hazlitt.