If you were to ask me, right now, what is the least recognized important invention that has affected us the most in the last century, I would have to say, the rechargeable battery. Looking around my house, I could not help but notice all these dangling cords, some black, some white, whose sole purpose was to recharge our smartphones and other digital devices. And that led me to think about how dependent we have become on these devices. And that led me to the Internet and all of the information, disinformation and entertainment it provides and, while the rechargeable battery has played some part in this enchantment, there are, of course, many other reasons why the Internet pervades our lives.
For example, there are several sites on the Internet that provide book reviews targeted to students as a way of speeding up the process of learning. Of course, book abstracts have long preceded the arrival of the Internet, but one would have to admit that the Internet has enhanced and facilitated that process. Without diving deeply into a philosophical discussion of the value of entertainment, one could ask, “What’s wrong with learning useful stuff faster? --- I’m a busy person with no time to waste.”
But, upon reflection, what is gained by the ability to skip over the “unimportant parts” of any book when you have to trust not only the opinions of the author but the judgement of the reviewer who provides the abstract? Why the rush? Would you speed up the transmission of a Mozart symphony in order to get to the end as quickly as possible? Or chug a bottle of fine wine? Of course not. Books, especially fiction, must be read at a pace that allows us to enjoy the story, the writing style, to muse upon the plot and the characters and to be able to pause and reflect on what’s just been read. These are, after all, the great rewards of reading. Speed and efficiency have replaced introspection and retrospection and while the Internet is not the sole cause, it certainly helps it along.
“The world is too much with us”, is a sonnet by William Wordsworth lamenting the withering connection between humankind and nature, blaming industrial society for replacing that connection with material pursuits. Wordsworth wrote the poem during the First Industrial Revolution, a period of technological innovation spanning the mid 18th to early 19th centuries that thoroughly transformed British life.
Here are the first four lines:
“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”
The next ten lines can be found at:
www.litcharts.com/poetry/william-wordsworth/the-world-is-too-much-with-us
The message of the poem holds true today:
Nature, the natural world, is being overwhelmed by our human weaknesses --- power, greed and desire. We used to stop and smell the roses, now we run farms that sell roses to florists. These farms displace stands of trees which provide not only better soil but oxygen while capturing carbon dioxide which has helped to restrain climate change. But even this situation is not a new phenomenon --- it happens every time we have an industrial revolution as was the case when the English Poet William Wordsworth in circa 1802 wrote the above sonnet,” as a cautionary tale, warning us to not stray too far from Nature.
There is a Zen lesson about saving time: A Zen Buddhist Monk is invited to speak to a Sangha (https://www.lionsroar.com/the-practice-of-sangha) in the heart of New York City He is met at the closest Subway station and the person greeting him says,” We can take a shortcut through the park to save some time --- Let’s go.” As they approach the end of the park, the Monk sits down on a bench and starts feeding the squirrels . “What are you doing?’ the greeter says to the Monk. The Monk replies, “I’m spending some of the time we saved.”
Is the Internet too much with us?
