I had the Internet when I was a kid and I ended up being a software engineer with useful skills in many different areas.
You are wrong to blame the Internet (or today LLMs). Do not blame the tool.
Sure I consumed sex when I was a kid, but I did a fuckton of coding of websites (before JavaScript caught up, but in JavaScript) and modding of games. I met lots of interesting, and smart people on IRC with mutual hobbies and so forth. I did play violent games, too, just FYI, when I was not making mods for them.
Could the difference between your experience and that of today's teenagers be in the fact that in your time, there were no online content farms hyperoptimized for maximum addictiveness, after their owners invested millions (if not billions) into making them so?
back then the web (or prior networks like Gopher, Usenet) were used and filled mainly by professionals working in the one or another field; and if you were online, you demonstrated already a basic tech undertstanding, since it wasnt as convenience as today.
Sure, porn existed early on; but the "entertaining web content" was just not existing as today.
Yes, I believe so. The only thing that was addicting to me was coding. It really was addicting. I did not leave the house all summer when I was >13 because I was busy coding. But then again, this "addiction" helped me a lot in today's world. That said, I am left with a serious impostor syndrome, however, and my social skills aren't the best, which is also required in today's world, by a programmer. :/
You are wrong to blame the Internet (or today LLMs). Do not blame the tool.
Sure I consumed sex when I was a kid, but I did a fuckton of coding of websites (before JavaScript caught up, but in JavaScript) and modding of games. I met lots of interesting, and smart people on IRC with mutual hobbies and so forth. I did play violent games, too, just FYI, when I was not making mods for them.