Is 37 still considered “mid-thirties”?
What We’ve Lost to the Internet
I was recently browsing the new books at my local public library and the title of Pamela Paul’s latest work arrested my attention: 100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet.
I’ve thought about this subject a lot through the years. Since my junior or senior year of college, I’ve been contemplating how modern technologies reorient our experience of the world. Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death and later Technopoly began to frame my perspective, but I continued to delve deeply into the literature commonly known as “tech criticism.” Of course, behind many of these popular works are the more serious ones, often described as the philosophy of technology and media ecology. You encounter important thinkers as diverse as McLuhan, Ong, Illich, Borgmann, etc. These and others fueled my interest, culminating in my first thesis. But oh, how much the digital landscape has changed since 2011!
I’m young enough to have been influenced personally by having a computer with Internet access in my home. Yet I’m also old enough to remember life without the Internet. I remember library day in elementary school. The head librarian had assembled a group of students to introduce us to this thing called the World Wide Web. I can still see the little Netscape Navigator icon on the screen, ever so slowly connecting to the Internet. I’m sure the librarian made some remarks about how this was going to be “a very important and useful tool” in the future. Even grade-school Jackson was skeptical. I remember thinking, “Yeah right! What a bunch of nonsense. Wave of the future my foot!” We can put that opinion in the missed prediction column…
Years later when we finally did get a computer with Internet access in my home, it didn’t define our reality. I’m sure other kids had better computers. There were fewer sites one could or even wanted to visit. I could count on one hand how many people I might ever, under any circumstances, send an email to. Fundamentally, we were farm kids. So while we enjoyed our television, most of our formative moments were spent outdoors.
But Mrs. Paul has a broader perspective in mind when she writes about what we’ve lost to the Internet. She isn’t merely thinking about the 1990s. She has in mind the ubiquitous experience of the Internet, especially as we’ve come to carry it in our pockets via smartphones. In fact, her book really combines Internet access with the phenomenon of being reachable via phone 24/7. So how have these changed our lives?
Paul identifies (somewhat arbitrarily, but creatively) 100 things that we’ve lost along the way. Her list ranges from more concrete things like high school reunions or Rolodexes to more experiential ones like civility and humility. It’s a fascinating list. Paul doesn’t mean to suggest that we’ve lost these things entirely. Plenty of people still attend high school reunions. However, one used to attend such events largely to learn where life had taken everyone. With the Internet and social media, we mostly already know. But then some artifacts have disappeared altogether, like T.V. Guide.
Browsing Paul’s list elicits a lot of “Ah ha moments.” You remember things you had forgotten. You may even get a little sentimental. But her list also elicits some contemplation. Do we generally display less humility in a social environment where we think Google can instantly answer questions we used to depend on others to answer? Are our prayers for greater patience undermined by our moment-by-moment digital habits? Are we willfully forfeiting better sleep because we constantly feel “the world out there” beckoning us?
Paul writes journalistically and humorously. But a churchly perspective on “digital life” would take seriously her entire list. Some of the losses she cites are much more integral to the formation of spiritual virtue. This should give us pause—another thing we’ve largely lost to the Internet. But Christians should be quick to think of those virtues, habits of attention, and relational qualities being shaped by our technological habits.
Sometimes sentimentality over things from the past preoccupies us. Probably many church members feel that way about the post-COVID move to offering boxes or online giving as opposed to passing plates. Or we regret the fact that we can’t remember as many phone numbers as we used to. But the real concern always lies deeper: Am I thinking differently about financial fidelity due to this change? If so, is this due to a change in giving receptacle, or is sentimentality clouding my commitment? Is the fact that I can’t remember 150 phone numbers the actual problem, or the fact that I can no longer remember anything that isn’t blinking at me on a screen?
When we move beyond the inevitable change in tools, facility upgrades, and other tangible changes in our churches, are we more concerned about preserving stuff, or shaping sensibilities—sensibilities that are attuned to listening well, thinking well, and loving well?
Currently Reading:
Story as Torah: Reading Old Testament Narrative Ethically by Gordon Wenham
When People Are Big and God is Small by Edward Welch
You don’t have to watch the news daily nor follow geopolitics closely to know that a war is underway in Europe. Let’s be sure to pray for those who will undoubtedly suffer because of the decisions of others.