Not that I don't see what you're saying, but there are a lot of us out here who've built careers around the Internet which are, at the very least, far better than any other prospect that might've been available to us. Certainly in my own case - absent the Internet, I'm nothing but a mouthy unlettered redneck with no meaningful prospects beyond maybe doing menial lab work for the local university, earning maybe $10k a year over the local median in exchange for a lifetime of daily health risks and all the nonsense that goes with being staff in an academic environment.

Don't get me wrong - I'm still a mouthy unlettered redneck, either way. But in a world where the Internet is a thing, I'm a mouthy unlettered redneck who is unaccountably able to earn a very good living for himself, enough so that he can not only support himself in comfortable style but help look after family back home who weren't so fortunate, including the distant cousin who nearly died when his meth lab blew up.

So while I'm not wholly unsympathetic to commentary like the Quartz author's, I find myself forced to take it with a grain of salt. Sure, the current situation is not ideal. There are a lot of things that could change for the better. Healthier habits around mobile devices. A more conscious understanding of the effect the Internet has on perception. Facebook burned to the ground, the ground salted, and the ashes buried under a crossroads at midnight. All kinds of things.

There are also a lot of people out here like me for whom life in a world with even the Internet we have is vastly better than the best lives we'd be able to make for ourselves in a world without. I think that's something worth keeping in mind in a conversation like this. But then, of course, I suppose I'd almost have to think so, wouldn't I?