Information junkies

The familiar itch comes in surreptitiously, causing my hands to shake. All self-control goes out the window as I open Chrome and begin surfing the Web, moving from Google News to Twitter to Bwog and back to Google News. I click links to stories faster than I can comprehend their content. Oh, the information is so good. But, after I read all the stories, I crash. Scared and sad, I force myself to go back to work. I am calm. The room stops spinning. Then, only two minutes later, the itch returns.

It’s a strange thing, this addiction to information. As a kid, I mailed a letter to a friend while in summer camp, and happily forgot about him until a postcard came a week or two later. Today, I get frustrated waiting more than 15 minutes for a text message response. With the proliferation of mobile devices that deliver all forms of peer-to-peer communication and news instantaneously, this phenomenon is becoming more and more widespread. We are becoming information junkies.

In her recent column about the effects of Internet shorthand on English composition, Spectator’s Lucy Tang argued that Internet slang or netspeak was nothing to LOL about, what with it threatening to destroy languages like Japanese and English just as Godzilla did Tokyo and New York City. New York Times columnist David Brooks also bemoaned the effects of netspeak, but this time in the romantic realm. As we become more technologically evolved, Brooks argued, we become more romantically inept, using our technology for hookups and trysts instead of quality relationships and love.

Bad as things may seem, these issues aren’t novel. New forms of communication have always threatened language, as far back as when Homer transcribed “The Iliad” and caused the ultimate fall of orally composed epic poetry. Additionally, relationships have always been skewed by the human need for immediate gratification. The most complicated issue of new technology seems instead to be how often we are using it and in what capacity.

The Internet is filled with useful things. The MIT OpenCourseWare provides some of the finest lectures from linear algebra to philosophy of film online, and Wikipedia helps explain almost any concept or event. Yet we seem to spend our time online like we do at a beach, looking for music and videos, reading stories, and chatting with friends. Useful sites on the Web are dwarfed by the enormous number of useless Web sites on which most of us tend to spend our time.

All the while, the Internet seems to increase the speed at which we must live. Information about upcoming events and dates gets sent to e-mail and phones and Twitter at a surprisingly fast rate, demanding our instant attention. Acquaintances become friends overnight from Facebook, and TV shows become old within a week from Hulu and Sidereel˜. Even love and relationships are developing faster than before, due to the introduction of chatting and texting capabilities.

What appears to be more problematic is that we are abusing the Web due to laziness and boredom. Web sites like Cramster and Koofers that provide students with answers to homework problems have been attacked for their support of academic dishonesty, according to an article by the Wall Street Journal. Even Web sites that could be used productively, like Facebook and Wikipedia, are often abused unintentionally, leading to wasted hours.

The Internet was never intended to become the great sink of productivity that it has become for many. Instead of treating it as a great knowledge repository or communication device, many instead have made the Internet another tool for entertainment, where they may read news stories and watch videos. The last great entertainment device, the television, underwent major criticism for being a device for passive entertainment, leading others to blame it for ADHD and obesity in children. If we continue to treat the Internet like we did television, we will not only be opening it up to similar attacks and criticisms, but we will also be depriving ourselves of some of its greatest benefits.

Our addiction to information and to the Web needs to be curbed. That means wasting less time online and spending more time learning and thinking offline. If we are to cure ourselves and build a better Internet, we need to start appreciating the Web by using it more deliberately.

After all, the best way to cure an itch is to leave it alone.

Akiva Bamberger is a Columbia College junior majoring in computer science and mathematics with a pre-medical concentration. He is president of the Association for Computing Machinery. Bits and Pieces runs alternate Wednesdays. opinion@columbiaspectator.com