A Deadly Mistake

The worst mistake man ever made was to speed everything up. As the old man in The Shawshank Redemption said before hanging himself: “The world went and got itself into a big damn hurry.” While at that time he referred to the abundance of automobiles and the sudden speed with which business was being done, today that speed has accelerated even more.

            Today, we live in what appears to be an instant world. Instant food, instant communication; the only thing that’s not instant is our transportation, and even then we’ve managed to speed it up in many ways and for many purposes, though our freeways remain jam-packed at rush hour and stand completely still any time a collision occurs. The Internet, it has been argued, has had many benefits, but perhaps if we step back and examine the evidence to these “benefits,” we will find that they are only beneficial in the context of a fast, instant world wherein any task can be done instantaneously as long as it can be done digitally. In fact, I would argue the Internet has done more harm than good, for despite the speed with which processes can be completed, people feel more like they have no time to do things—to create a coherent thought, to research a point as completely as it can be researched—even to relax and take a break from all the pressures that have resulted from the breakneck speed to which we have developed. The more we connect in the virtual world, the more we demand immediate results, the less we connect in real life and the more alienated we feel from our peers.

            Relationships build over time. They are a natural process like the rest of life. The Internet, in many ways, is destroying the very foundation of a relationship. No longer do people take time to get to know one another. They group together online and share things, but often times when someone shows a point of view that disagrees with the group, the person holding the opposing position is ousted from the group itself. The more connected we feel in the virtual, instant world, the less connected we feel to and within real life. People don’t touch each other as much anymore; their fingers are too busy swiping and tapping screens, pressing keys, clicking mice; their eyes are too occupied by a screen; their ears are so preoccupied with electronics that they fail to pick up sound waves that emanate next to them from partners, family members, friends, colleagues, etc.

            Naturally, one might ask me, “If that’s your argument, why do you use the Internet?” The answer is simple: I grew up with its development. I began using computers in 2001, at the age of 9. I played the hell out of The Sims and I spent more time online than I did talking to my family, every chance I got. Suddenly, the world seems so much bigger for the addition of the World Wide Web, and so much smaller when we remain rooted in reality. My experience in the military expanded the world greatly for me, and also showed me that as big as it gets, it is only so big. The thing is, I think that’s okay.

            Our population on this planet is such that there is no way any one person can meet every single other person on the planet. Still, I think that our goal in life should be to make connections, to communicate, to learn and grow from one another. Our purpose should not be to drive a sales bargain, to find the bottom line of a deal, to cheat and swindle our way to the top of an imaginary ladder or the front of an imaginary race. The Internet has done me much good in my life, it is true, but to connect this to what I said before, I would wager that the benefits I have experienced have been a direct result of the desire in our society for immediate results. Research papers are due in just enough time to find as many sources as possible, and most of those sources today come from the Internet rather than a library. Printed books are going out of style in favour of digital copies that can instantly be downloaded, eliminating the need for people to get out in public and interact with other bookworms in shops, or shopkeepers themselves.

            Pokémon GO was the best technological advancement in gaming since Ingress. It got more people outside than did Ingress, and even now, as it continues to update, people can come together within the game, make friends, and trade Pokémon. These are new developments and while I can talk all day long against technology, I can also talk all day long in support of it, because this kind of development is just what we need to get people outside and interacting with one another in real life again. Further advancements must be made, however. We cannot allow ourselves to be limited to these games to explore the outside world and meet people face-to-face. The problem still exists that everything in this world today is moving too fast.

            People today are literally working themselves to death. This phenomenon has been reported by Forbes in this article, and Time covered it in their own article. It seems that overwork is most common in Japan, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the cardiology-related deaths in America are caused by the stresses of overworking.

            It’s time to slow down. The Internet may have many uses, but it’s so large it’s literally uncontrollable. There are proxies and workarounds for the most censored nations. Truly, unless a person lacks a connection, the Internet is nigh unavoidable in today’s age. Still, I think its development was in many ways a mistake and I wonder how we might be able to change it so that it could be used more primarily for research purposes, or more accurately, how we might slow down the frantic rat race of our society while maintaining the use of the Internet for all the good it does us.