When the internet was shiny and new, it was a magical place. You could find any information at no charge because “information wants to be free.” And you could trust what you found, because who would be so crass as to misinform? That dream-bubble popped long ago. These days, if you find something free on the web, it means the site sees you as the product, most likely selling your personal information. And posts, especially AI-generated posts, may be totally false or imaginary.
If you’re feeling oppressed by the modern internet, you’re not alone. Researchers at Incogni surveyed a thousand Americans across a range of ages and geographic locations. They found an increasingly negative attitude toward the internet, especially to the AI slop that’s coming to dominate the realm. Let’s break it down.
Most Americans Think Data Breaches Are Inevitable
Asked whether “the breach of my personal data is a statistical inevitability,” 52% of the respondents affirmed a big yes, while just 11% said no. The responses reveal a small age gap: Only 48% of boomers and Gen Z respondents said yes, compared with 55% or more for millennials and Gen X.
While you can’t utterly eliminate the possibility of being exposed in a data breach, there are things you can do. It’s bad when data brokers package up your personal information for sale, but it’s worse when a broker gets hacked, exposing all its profiles to the dark web. You can use a personal data removal service to clear out those potential exposures. And yes, not coincidentally, Incogni is such a service. By using a temporary email service, you can hide your real email address so it can’t turn up in a breach. You can even shop online without revealing your real email, phone number, or credit card.
I’m with the majority here. I’m sure my data will be exposed…because it already has been. The best we can do is minimize our attack surface and be prepared to deal with the aftermath.
Too Much Time Online? You’re Not Alone
“I drink too much.” “I smoke too much.” “I spend too much time on the internet.” One simple answer to all these gripes is “So, do it less!” But as most of us have seen, that just doesn’t happen. Surfing the internet isn’t physically addicting like drugs or booze, but the behavior around it is quite similar.
Asked about the amount of time they spend online, 43% of respondents said too much, 7% said too little, and 44% (the Goldilocks crew) said their time spent is just right.
Are you among those who feel you just spend too much time on the web? Yet you can’t seem to cut back? You might benefit from a digital detox regime. Just for a while, at first, to show yourself you can do it. Then maybe for longer.
AI Makes Truth Harder to Find
Years ago (well, in 2023), I wrote that AI is the nemesis of truth itself. The players have changed since then—for example, Google Bard has become Gemini—but the premise remains. AI can actively promote lies by generating convincing phishing frauds or creating deepfakes that are indistinguishable from the original. Or it may simply hallucinate, inserting dangerous errors as facts or citing nonexistent precedents. Way too many web posts consist of an AI-generated image paired with an AI-written mini-article of dubious accuracy.
Incogni’s survey asked respondents to choose from eight statements about AI, four of them positive and four negative. You won’t be surprised to learn that the negative responses far outweighed the positive, with the top one, chosen by 48% of respondents, being “I am less sure of what’s real.” Broadly speaking, that is the problem. 40% agreed that the lack of accountability for deepfakes is disturbing. And the glum mood continues with “I want to spend significantly less time online” (27%) and “I feel more tired or fatigued” (16%).
We recently reported on another poll showing that 55% of Americans have stopped posting on social media. The current poll lumps together social media and messaging apps and digs into the reasons folks might quit.
Of the respondents, 47% indicated that they have deleted such an app due to stress and anxiety. Another 41% also deleted their social or messaging apps, citing privacy concerns. Of course, this doesn’t mean they quit using the internet, just quit social media and messaging.
Those who don’t delete these apps may come to regret it. Half of those polled said they had posted personal information online and later wished they hadn’t. Responses varied by age and gender, with the most regretful group being Gen Z women. 61% of them reported having posted personal data and then wishing the post had not been sent.
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Would You Pay for a Better Internet?
With all this gloom and doom, you might start to think the internet is a lost cause. But what if we could start over without features like trackers that spy on our behavior to sell ads and algorithmic systems that show us what they think we should want?
Asked if they’d pay for a no-tracking internet with no algorithmic feeds, a quarter of the respondents just weren’t sure. That’s reasonable—there’s not a lot of detail in that question. 46% outright said no, while 29% agreed that yes, they’d pay. According to the Pew Research Center, 96% of American adults use the internet. If 29% of that group would pay for a privacy-centric internet, that’s a large potential audience. Enough to merit a start-up?
This statistic looks different when broken down by financial status. It turns out that the more money you have, the more likely you are to spend some of that cash on a better internet. The high-, medium-, and low-income groups agreed with the premise at 38%, 26%, and 22%, respectively.
What do I think? The internet is thoroughly entwined in our lives. My dishwasher texts me when it’s finished. I can check the stove temperature remotely and turn it off from a distance. If I leave the garage door open, it sends me a message with an option to tap to close it. My medical appointments come through a secure app. Really, we can’t just get rid of it. But the idea that we could improve it, well, that’s interesting. I’ll check in a year and see if we’ve made any progress.
In the meantime, if you want to see the full details of the Incogni survey, you can read them here.
About Our Expert
Neil J. Rubenking
Principal Writer, Security
Experience
When the IBM PC was new, I served as the president of the San Francisco PC User Group for three years. That’s how I met PCMag’s editorial team, who brought me on board in 1986. In the years since that fateful meeting, I’ve become PCMag’s expert on security, privacy, and identity protection, putting antivirus tools, security suites, and all kinds of security software through their paces.
Before my current security gig, I supplied PCMag readers with tips and solutions on using popular applications, operating systems, and programming languages in my “User to User” and “Ask Neil” columns, which began in 1990 and ran for almost 20 years. Along the way, I wrote more than 40 utility articles, as well as Delphi Programming for Dummies and six other books covering DOS, Windows, and programming. I also reviewed thousands of products of all kinds, ranging from early Sierra Online adventure games to AOL’s precursor Q-Link.
In the early 2000s, I turned my focus to security and the growing antivirus industry. After years of working with antivirus, I’m known throughout the security industry as an expert on evaluating antivirus tools. I serve as an advisory board member for the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO), an international nonprofit group dedicated to coordinating and improving testing of anti-malware solutions.
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