Stefan BohacekHappy 25th anniversary to this Daily Mail article from the year 2000, proclaiming that internet "may be just a passing fad as millions give up on it".
Douglas Edwards 
@stefan Does anyone have page, section, and edition for this? (The image gives author, title, date, and column).
소주한잔@dedicto @stefan no but it looks like research being quoted is here: "they came, they surfed, they went back to the beach"
https://academic.oup.com/book/52617/chapter-abstract/421806907?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
and here is the entire ESRC "virtual society?" project book
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Virtual_Society.html?id=OEgVDAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y
@scaramanga @dedicto Nice find!
@stefan @dedicto yeah and the points being made by the researchers seem reasonable: access costs to the internet are high so out of reach of teenagers, the dot com bust slashed ad budgets of dot coms leading to downgraded growth forecasts, lack of digital money combined with the fact teens dont have credit cards limits growth of online shopping...
The issue here is just typically bad science reporting and bombastic headlines...
@scaramanga @stefan The real world did have more to offer in 2000 — but I'm 68 years old, I was a teenager in the 1970s[!], and I can assure you that AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER kids AND ADULTS have been fascinated with fantasy worlds. Have people forgotten that "Star Wars" was a hit in 1977? That the first edition of D&D was published in 1974? Affordability of access was indeed an issue, but thinking the Internet would lose out from LACK OF INTEREST was every bit as abysmally stupid as it looks from the perspective of 2025 with the benefit of hindsight.
lonely extrovert