Editorials known about the effects of computers on what we and our students think about or how well we can think about it. In other words, are there some things worth think­ing about for which computers are ill-suit­ed. Can computers teach us to be properly sceptical of computers? Would people so wired and networked still want to talk to each other face to face? Would they remember how? Would they be sane? Or civil? Would they still know a tree from a bird? And after all the hype, what is the relation between information, knowledge and wisdom? My fellow committee mem­bers, thoughtful persons all, stirred impa­tiently. After an awkward pause, one said: "We've been through this before and don't need to rehash the subject." I asked, "When?" Another awkward pause. No one could recall when that momentous conver­sation had occurred. "Well it's all in the lit ­erature," said another. I asked for citations. None was forthcoming. What I had read on the subject by Joseph Weizenbaum,1

Theodore Roszak,2 Neil Postman3 and C. A. Bowers,4 would suggest to the curriculum committees of the world good reasons for caution. But these books had not been discussed by the committee, and no others were suggested.

Scene Three: Washington, D.C. A high public official is describing plans for the creation of a national information super-

We, leaf blowers and computer jockeys alike, have tended to become technological fundamentalists, unwilling, perhaps unable, to question our basic assumptions about how our tools relate to our larger purposes and prospects.

the answers given one might infer that the rationale for a superhighway is: (a) it wil l make the American economy more "competitive" because lack of information is what ails us; and (b) it's inevitable and can't be stopped anyway.

I am neither for nor against leaf blowers, computers, networks, or the information age for that matter. My target is fundamentalism, which is not something that happens just to religious zealots. It can happen to well-educated people as well who fail to ask hard questions about why we do what we do, how we do it, or how these things affect our long-term prospects. We, leaf blowers and computer jockeys alike, have

Seduced by convenience, dazzled by cleverness, armed with no adequate philosophy of technology, and not wanting to appear to our peers as premodern, we were at the mercy of those selling "progress " to us without a whisper about where it will ultimately take us. highway. The speech is full of high-tech words and mega this and that. Sober-looking public officials, corporate executives and technicians glance at each other and nod approvingly. Members of the press dutifully scribble notes. TV cameras record the event. The questions that follow are mostly of the "gee whiz" kind. From

tended to become technological fundamentalists, unwilling, perhaps unable, to question our basic assumptions about how our tools relate to our larger purposes and prospects.

Scene One is an obvious case of technological overkill in which means and ends are not well calibrated. The deeper

problem, noted by all critics of technology from Mary Shelley and Herman Melville on, is that industrial societies are long on means but short on ends. Unable to separate "can do" from "should do", we suffer a kind of technological immune deficiency syndrome that renders us vulnerable to whatever can be done and too weak to question what i t is that we should do.

In Scene Two, the committee did not know how computers affect what we pay attention to and how this, in turn, affects our long-term eco­

logical prospects. Not knowing these things and being unwilling to admit them as honest, even important questions, we did not know whether all of this technology could be used for good or not. Assuming that i t could be used to good effect, we did not know how to do so. Seduced by convenience, dazzled by cleverness, armed with no adequate philosophy of technology, and not wanting to appear to our peers as pre-modern, we were at the mercy of those selling "progress" to us without a whisper about where it wil l ultimately take us.

In Scene Three, much of the same is true on a larger scale as we approach the entry ramp of the "information superhighway". Smart and well-meaning people believe this to be the cat's meow. But by what standard should we judge this enterprise? Wil l it, on balance, help us preserve biotic potential? Will it help to make us a more sane, civil and sustainable culture? In this regard it is enlightening to know that a substantial part of the traffic now appearing on the superhighway so far built has to do with the distribution of pornography. Furthermore, the phrase "information superhighway" invites comparison with the interstate highways built in the United States between 1956 and the present. Any fair accounting of the real costs of that national commitment would include the contributions of the interstate system to the following problems:

• Damage to urban neighbourhoods and

communities • Highway deaths • Loss of biological diversity • Damage to fragile landscapes • Urban sprawl • Polluted air • Acid rain • Noise pollution • Global warming • Destruction of an extensive national

railway system • Distortion of American political life by

an automobile lobby • The foreign policy consequences of

dependence on imported oil .

We, the children of the people who made or acquiesced in that decision, might prefer that these costs had been forthrightly discussed in 1956. Years from now what might our children and grandchildren wish we had thought about before we built an "information superhighway"? We cannot know for certain, But we might guess that they would want us to have asked something like the following:

First, they might wish that we had been clearer about the purposes of the information superhighway. What problem was it intended to solve? What was the master

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The twentieth century is littered with failed technologies, once believed to be good in their time and promoted by smart and wellmeaning people.

idea behind i t and how might it support or undermine other master ideas in Western culture having to do with justice, fairness, tolerance, religious freedom and democracy?5 Looking back, the rationale behind the interstate highway system was never much debated. To the contrary, it was presented as a combination of "national security" and "economic competitiveness", phrases that for nearly 50 years have been used to foreclose debate and conceal motives that should have been publicly examined.

Second, our descendants may wonder why we were so mesmerized by the capacity to move massive amounts of information at the speed of light. What kind of information for what purposes needs to be moved in such great quantities at that speed? At what velocity and volume does information become knowledge? Or wisdom? Is it possible that wisdom works inversely to velocity and volume? The bottle-neck in this system wil l always be the space between our two ears. At what rate

can we process information, or sift through the daily tidal wave of information to find that which is important or even correct? I t would seem sensible to move the smallest possible amount of information consonant with the largest possible ends at a speed no faster than that at which the mind can assimilate it and use i t to good purpose. This speed is probably less than that of light. Relative to our long-term ecological prospects, the most valuable information may prove to be that which is accumulated slowly and patiently - the kind of information that is mulled over and sometimes agonized over and with the passage of time may become cultural wisdom.

tyre manufacturers. It was less useful to those unable to afford cars, who once relied on trains or buses. It was decidedly not beneficial to those whose communities were bulldozed or bisected to make way for multiple-lane expressways. Nor was i t useful to those who had to spend a significant part of their lives driving to their newly dispersed workplaces. Accordingly, our descendants might wish us to ask whether access to the information superhighway wil l be fair. Will it be equally open to the poor? Will it be used to make society more or less equitable? Or more sustainable? Or wil l i t be said of the information superhighway that it , like the

For a technological society, Garrett Hardin ys query "what then?" is the ultimate heresy. But, standing, as we do, before such technological choices as nanotechnologies, genetic engineering, virtual reality machines and information superhighways, no previous society needed its heretics more than ours.

Third, future generations may wish that we had asked about the distribution of costs and benefits from the information superhighway. Looking back, the interstate highway system was a great boon to the heavy construction industry, car makers, oil companies, insurance companies and

"computer, as presently used by the technological elite, is .. . an instrument pressed into the service of rationalizing, supporting and sustaining the most conservative, indeed reactionary, ideological components of the current Zeitgeist?"6

Our descendants wil l also wish that we

Cyber-sickness According to the findings of a two-year study, published in American Psychologist in September, there is a direct correlation between "surfing the Internet" and depression, loneliness, and the breakdown of social relationships.

About seven million people in Britain have access to the Internet, and an increasing number appear to be succumbing to a malady known as internet addiction syndrome (IAD). The study shows that interaction with friends and family declines in direct relation to the amount of time spent online, while loneliness and depression increase. Significant numbers of marriages have broken down as a result, and users commonly fall deeply into debt, and work or study suffers - largely because those concerned have spent all night browsing and find it hard to keep awake.

Symptoms, according to Kimberly Young, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Caught In The Net include lying to family or colleagues about the amount of time spent on the internet; restlessness, irritability and anxiety when not at the computer; and repeated but unsuccessful attempts to cut down on the time involved. Spending more than five hours a day online is generally considered a

danger sign.

The Internet, according to the author, could be as addictive as drugs, alcohol or gambling. "In Cyberspace, a shy person can become outgoing, a non-sexual person can be sexual, a non-assertive person can be forceful or an aloof person can be gregarious... It may not be long," she warns, "before Internet addicts are attending drying out centres to rediscover some basic social skills - holding a normal conversation, for instance."

The internet addiction service run by Marissa Hecht Orzack, a psychologist at

Harvard University's McClean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, has received hundreds of requests for help.

According to Andre Levy, a London-based computer expert, "People who use the Internet to a great extent are living their lives in a substitute world, one in which they have no physical interaction."

Adapted from "Trapped in a Web of Misery" an article by Jon Ashworth in The Times, Wednesday, September 2nd, 1998, page 15.

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