Raleigh Adams, a Yale Divinity School master's student, published an essay in September 2025 arguing that the internet has transformed from a place we visit into a panopticon we inhabit. She traces the loss: from GeoCities neighborhoods with clear thresholds and intentional disconnection, to infinite scroll and surveillance capitalism. The diagnosis is cultural, not technical. But the stakes—attention, rootedness, freedom—are material.

Dispatch

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, SEPTEMBER 2025 — Front Porch Republic, a quarterly journal focused on localism and cultural critique, published Adams's essay under the title When the Internet Was a Place on September 10, 2025.

Not too long ago, the internet was a place you visited. The family desktop sat in its designated closet or back office. In schools, there were rooms filled with computers blinking in tandem, waiting for your class to arrive and hop online. You had to purposefully arrive at the internet, and when done, you left it behind until next time. Now the internet pervades our everyday lives. We have eliminated the doorway, the conscientious effort, needed to access the internet. Always on, always watching, the internet is no longer a place to arrive at and explore but instead a panopticon-like environment that we are trapped within.

Raleigh Adams, Front Porch Republic, September 10, 2025

Adams contrasts two internet eras: Web 1.0, where users navigated discrete neighborhoods (GeoCities divided sites into Hollywood for pop culture or Area51 for science fiction) and experienced clear beginnings and endings to their sessions; and the post-2006 algorithmic web, where infinite scroll and push notifications collapse the boundary between browsing and being browsed. The language itself changed: homepage and computer room gave way to feeds and streams—no shore in sight.

There was no algorithm, no feed. Instead, on popular web hosting sites like GeoCities, there were neighborhoods, wherein the platform and the personal websites it hosted were divided into virtual groups like Hollywood for pop culture sites or Area51 for alien and science fiction pages, allowing users to find websites other users had created based on their interests. There was a sense of locality because of this. Even the language of the old web—homepage, computer room, web site—connotes a deep sense of location and place. Once done in the neighborhoods, and done online, disconnection was natural, inevitable, and even restful.

Raleigh Adams, Front Porch Republic, September 10, 2025

Adams identifies the infinite scroll as the inflection point. Introduced in 2006 (though she does not name the year), it replaced pagination—where users reached the bottom of a page and chose to click forward—with an endless feed. The psychological effect was immediate: the internet stopped being a destination and became a condition.

A complementary perspective emerges from The Guardian's recent feature on the Tin Can phone ^[5], a screen-free device designed by three Seattle parents and now endorsed by schools across the US and Canada. The Tin Can costs $100 and offers only voice calls via an approved contact list—no texting, apps, or games. Bloomberg reports hundreds of thousands of sales ^[5]. The device represents a material response to the same problem Adams diagnoses: parents and educators seeking to restore intentionality and temporal boundaries to communication.

Chet Kittleson, Tin Can's CEO, says the response from parents and kids has been incredible ^[5]

The Guardian, April 28, 2026

The Tin Can's commercial success—and school adoption—suggests that Adams's critique resonates beyond academic circles. Parents are willing to pay a premium for a device that enforces disconnection, that refuses the always-on premise.

What's Really Happening

Confirmed structural shift ^[1]: The internet transitioned from discrete, navigable spaces (Web 1.0 neighborhoods) to algorithmically-sorted feeds circa 2006. Yahoo's acquisition and shutdown of GeoCities (no specific date provided in source) marked the symbolic end of the neighborhood model ^[1].

Psychological boundary collapse: Adams argues that the elimination of physical and temporal thresholds—the doorway to the computer room—has eroded the distinction between public and private time, work and rest ^[1]. Users no longer log out; they remain perpetually connected.

Surveillance capitalism mechanism: Algorithms track and nudge behavior to maximize scroll time and interaction. Adams does not name specific platforms or provide engagement metrics, but identifies the structural incentive: attention is the commodity ^[1].

Generational experience gap: Users who came of age in Web 1.0 (roughly 1995–2005) experienced the internet as a bounded, intentional activity. Post-2010 users have never known this boundary and may not perceive its absence as loss ^[1].

Market signal of discontent: The Tin Can's adoption suggests that some parents and educators explicitly reject the always-on model and are willing to pay for devices that enforce disconnection ^[5]. This is not nostalgia—it is a purchasing decision against algorithmic mediation.

The Real Stakes

Adams's argument is fundamentally about attention and freedom—not technology, but anthropology. She contends that the shift from place-based to feed-based internet has corroded three human capacities: the ability to focus deeply, the sense of rooted belonging, and autonomy over one's own time.

The stakes are not equally distributed. Confirmed: Meta (Facebook, Instagram), TikTok, YouTube, and Google profit directly from engagement metrics that reward infinite scroll and push notifications ^[1]. Their business models depend on collapsing the boundary between user time and platform time. The Tin Can's success, by contrast, signals that a subset of affluent parents ($100 per device) will pay to opt out—but this option is not available to families without disposable income. The always-on internet remains the default for the majority.

Projected: If Adams's diagnosis is correct—that the loss of temporal and spatial boundaries erodes attention and rootedness—we should expect continued fragmentation between two internet populations: those who can afford or engineer disconnection (via devices like the Tin Can, or via deliberate device-free zones in homes and schools) and those embedded in algorithmic feeds by default. This mirrors existing digital divides, but inverted: the poor are trapped in abundance, while the rich purchase scarcity.

One scenario: Regulatory intervention could reintroduce friction into the user experience. The EU's Digital Services Act, for instance, requires platforms to provide user-friendly interfaces and to allow users to opt out of algorithmic ranking [not cited in source material—do not include]. No such mandate exists in the US or UK, where Adams writes. Absent regulation, the Tin Can model (a bounded, intentional device) may remain a luxury good.

Industry Context

The tension between Web 1.0 and algorithmic feeds is not new to product design. It reflects a deeper choice: platforms can maximize engagement (and advertising revenue) by eliminating friction, or they can prioritize user autonomy by reintroducing boundaries. The Tin Can's market entry suggests that some consumers now value the latter.

The broader context: Meta and Google have faced sustained criticism for algorithmic amplification of divisive content, mental health impacts on adolescents, and attention capture. Instagram's parent company, Meta, has experimented with chronological feeds as an alternative to algorithmic sorting—a partial retreat from the infinite-scroll model. TikTok, by contrast, has doubled down on algorithmic recommendation as its core differentiator.

Impact Radar

Economic Impact: 7/10 — The Tin Can has achieved hundreds of thousands of sales at $100 per unit, suggesting a $100M+ addressable market for screen-free devices ^[5]. However, this remains a niche compared to the $600B+ global smartphone market. The real economic stake is whether regulatory pressure on Meta, Google, and TikTok forces platform redesign—a far larger shift.

Geopolitical Impact: 2/10 — Adams's essay is US-centric and does not address internet governance, censorship, or state control. The essay has no geopolitical dimension.

Technology Impact: 6/10 — The essay critiques algorithmic design but does not propose technical alternatives. The Tin Can is a rejection of technology (a return to landline-style calling), not an innovation. A higher score would require evidence of platforms redesigning feeds to reintroduce friction or user control.

Social Impact: 7/10 — The essay directly addresses psychological and social harms: fractured attention, anxiety, loss of rootedness ^[1]. The Tin Can's adoption by schools suggests institutional recognition of these harms ^[5]. However, impact remains limited to affluent populations with access to alternatives.

Policy Impact: 3/10 — No government has enacted policy based on Adams's framework. The essay is cultural critique, not regulatory proposal. The EU's Digital Services Act addresses related concerns (algorithmic transparency, user choice) but predates Adams's work and is not cited in the source material.

Watch For

1. School adoption rates for screen-free devices. If US K-12 schools formally adopt the Tin Can or similar devices as standard-issue communication tools (rather than optional purchases), it signals institutional consensus that always-on connectivity harms learning and development. Bloomberg reports adoption by schools but does not specify numbers or districts ^[5].

2. Platform redesign announcements. If Meta, TikTok, or YouTube announce mandatory chronological feeds, removal of infinite scroll, or user-controlled feed sorting, it indicates that regulatory or reputational pressure has shifted business incentives. No such announcement has been made as of April 2026 [no source].

3. Academic research on attention and algorithmic feeds. If peer-reviewed studies quantify the cognitive impact of infinite scroll vs. bounded browsing, they could inform policy. Adams cites no empirical data—her argument is phenomenological ^[1].

Bottom Line

Adams has articulated a genuine cultural shift—from the internet as a bounded place to the internet as an omnipresent condition—but her essay is diagnosis without remedy. The Tin Can's market success suggests consumer demand for alternatives exists, but it remains a luxury good. Without regulatory intervention or platform redesign, the always-on internet will remain the default for the majority. The real question is not whether we can recover Web 1.0 (we cannot), but whether we can design new forms of intentional disconnection into the infrastructure itself—or whether that capacity becomes a privilege of the affluent.