Written By Zionne Soule
The Theory
The internet culture is not going anywhere; except the world goes on an unannounced reset. You know the world needs that, right? We do not mean this in a bad way.
Before the gargantuan use of the internet, people lived in the moment, fully. They were accountable for their minds and feelings, the distractions were minimal and could be managed. But in these times, it has become increasingly difficult to find those subconsciously wiped out memories due to an influx of constant notifications and the mental compulsion to always be connected, oftentimes without reason.
In 2002, 9.4% of the world’s population used the internet for approximately 46 minutes daily. As of April 2026, approximately 73.8% of the world’s population uses the internet, equivalent to roughly 6.12 billion people, with an average screen time of over 6 hours daily. Facebook alone crossed 3 billion monthly active users. TikTok, a platform that didn’t exist before 2016, now commands over 1.9 billion users. YouTube reports over 2.7 billion logged-in users monthly.
During the lockdown, the pandemic pushed quite a number of people to the internet space. Major platforms like Facebook, Netflix, Youtube and Tiktok reported a surge in user engagement during that period; which has helped in many ways by creating multiple income streams for creators to earn from their craft through brand influencing, members only subscription, digital products and other avenues for revenue.
This same internet has also helped shy people who can’t approach their potential partner in a public space find love without meeting physically; we see these occurrences, especially on tiktok where one finds love from a different part of the continent, all because of the power of the internet; where you can travel to destinations from the comfort of your home.
In April, 2020, Lady Gaga curated a lockdown benefit virtual concert called One World: Together at Home organized by the Global city of New York to help support the frontline healthcare workers and the World Health Organization that featured over 100 artists, comedians and public figures. We had Alicia Keyz, Burna Boy, Idris Elba and Sabrina Elba, David Beckham and Victoria Beckham and Sam Smith amongst many others.
The internet is an infinite university with a bottomless pool of information where you learn till you’re tired; that’s if you research correctly and try to intentionally reduce the unnecessary noise on your feed. This article is a reminder to find some sort of balance in this digital world, creating an atmosphere where you can just be without the digital distractions and consciously identifying the downsides of all the ‘blessings’ and easy lifestyle technology has given us. And guess what? You’re not missing out on anything!
The framework of daily human attention has been quietly and completely restructured. What makes this moment particularly interesting is where the weight lands. Gen Z, the first generation to fully inherit a digital world, are feeling it in ways that are hard to place and even harder to log off from; but they are not alone. The older generation who were raised without any of these have been pulled in just as deeply, often without realizing. They mostly view it as technology making life better in an advanced world. They spend hours on Facebook or disappear to YouTube rabbit holes and when confronted about it, they struggle to explain why. At least the Gen Z’s have the term to describe the tension; the generation before them live inside it, quietly bewildered by a device that somehow has more control over their time than they do.
Something is gradually shifting in the generation that grew up in the technological world. We bring this to your keen notice because there’s a constant battle for your attention; the distractions are strategic and infinite, with the incumbent of digital warfare. We’ve been able to take an intentional step back to observe the pattern of mind control and crowd mentality. Media dependency has almost gone beyond repair; the internet space is a crowded asylum where chaos and comfort share the same room; where the lost search for a sense of belonging and lose themselves in the process.
Not because the internet is new. Not because the conversation about screen time and mental health has not been had before. But because most of those conversations happen around Gen Z rather than with them. Experts, parents, researchers, and think pieces all weigh in on what the internet is doing to young people. More often than not, we ask superficially without getting a profound response.
We wanted the unfiltered version. Not the polished answer someone gives in a panel discussion, but the kind of statement you utter when someone asks you directly and you answer from your chest. We were unsure of what we would find. Some responses confirmed what we already felt. Others stopped us mid-read. Taken together, they paint a portrait of a generation that is not lost, not addicted in the way the headlines suggest, but genuinely trying to negotiate a life that is half online and half human, with no real navigator for how to do that well. That felt worth documenting.
To clearly understand this technological tension from diverse perspectives, a journalistic research was conducted on the Gen Z demographic, where they expressed their unfiltered views, genuinely reflecting on what the internet gives and takes from them.
- What does the internet genuinely feel like for you right now?
- Mention one thing it gives you and one thing it takes from you
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