Just some thoughts.

One could say that the standard goals for an adult in our western society have not changed over the last couple of decades and on first glance this statement could seem valid. Get a decent job, stay in touch with your friends from high school, college etc. and manage to find a partner for a serious long-term relationship. If you're one of those OCD types (who want to achieve everything) you could additionally try to have some children and raise them properly. These things have always kinda been there and achieving these goals kinda gave your life relevance and meaning (from an objective point of view). But there is a trend that I've noticed that kinda leads to a devaluation of these goals that a large part of society grew up with.

There are seven billion people living on this planet, when you think about the number and then imagine all these people in one place you'd notice how many of them did all these things above and that this 50's - 90's checklist for a meaningful life means nothing anymore. People nowadays do not struggle for successful careers or relationships, because they do not give you them this feeling of having a raison d'être. They are struggling to be seen and be heard and most importantly to be known. Look at this parallel community that we are maintaining via the WWW. It is full of social networks and platforms an all of these can show you who is the most important user, who has the most interesting blog and how many people are on your goddamn friendslist. These are the things now that allow you to measure your value as a person and I still don't get why.

I don't think the "50's-90's checklist" has been replaced by social networking, but the two are intertwined. People still strive for careers and relationships, but those journeys can take them through the space of the Internet. It is certainly not that way for everyone though. As you mentioned, seven billion people live on the planet. Many of them don't have or don't care for computers and/or the realms of the Internet. These people, as well as the people who delve into the Internet, may not define relevance in the terms that you have. They have their own determination of what relevance is and the Internet may or may not play a role in it. The determination of relevance is too subjective to pin down based solely on the values of others.

@the_red_mage: You're thinking about it too much. Just go with the flow, and before you know it, it'll all be like "Brave New World."

And if you've never read that book, let me tell you that would be bad, and I'm being sarcastic.

Yeah, I dunno. Life is weird. C'est le vie. (la? I should know this, I took three years of it in high school (and am taking it again in college)).

These are the things now that allow you to measure your value as a person and I still don't get why.

Easy. Because it's easy. Compared to the struggles in real life, and all the complexities that comes with them, it is so easy to dive in, and just decide what you want your e-life to look like, and from the confort of a confined yet secretive place be yourself.

I never understood why people think doing things on the internet will get you noticed.
 
Now going on a murderous killing spree, that's sure fire ticket to world wide recognition.

I don't want to be noticed, I just want to get paid hard.

I never understood why people think doing things on the internet will get you noticed.

I think that depends on what is done in the internet.

@the_red_mage:

Those are just small people with small minds and frames of thinking. I'm not like that, so I don't worry about it.

@MooseyMcMan: Yeah, I've read Brave New World ... probalby one of the the best dystopian novels besides Fahrenheit 451.