I greatly appreciated this Op-Ed from the New York Times, not because I always agreed with it (I have some strong push-back on his proposed “solutions”) but because I think it honestly grapples with a unspoken and ignored problem concerning life in the digital age. Before diving into the content of the article, I would like to mention I appreciated the writer’s (Ross Douthat) voice. The authentic, casual, blunt tone of the entire piece worked well with the honest concerns being raised and helped capture the immediacy of these issues, even when I didn’t always agree with his conclusions.
His main point that the internet has become an all consuming, abusive master in the lives of most American’s is a piercing but necessary critique on digital society. And I think that it is so piercing because most intrinsically know this already but we are so enamored by the benefits of the internet that we wink at the compulsive tendencies it can impose. Douthat’s upfront, almost accusing, observations act as a hammer to our blinding goggles, while also using the precision of a scalpel.
His point and imagery depicting our internet use as brutal enslavement reminds me of the prophetic warnings in the novel of “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley. As Neil Postman described, “Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us”, and the Internet’s increasing grip on our culture seems to be transforming that fear into a reality.
All that to say, some of Douthat’s solutions to these problems, particularly the drastic increasing of regulation and monitoring the internet, I think would be counter productive and even dangerous. On the one hand, the internet has become such a linchpin in life as we know it that (bar a dystopian apocalypse) any attempt to bureaucratically control it will prove futile. Enforcement of arbitrary laws written by ignorant politicians is not the solution for regaining the internet as our tool rather than our master.
What is the solution you may ask? I am not qualified or wise enough to give a definitive answer but I would lean in the direction of better education and fostering a culture that pursues ambitions and passions beyond the digital cages we often put ourselves into. Douthat is correct that our individual choices and blind acceptance of the internet are to blame for our enslavement but he is wrong that it will take governmental rule-making to free us. Freedom can only be won if the individual wants freedom. Digital liberty will primarily be achieved through individual resistance and communal encouragement.
Epic Explorations in Emerging Media 