I just don’t get it. That’s both an admission and a protest.  

I’m old enough to remember a technology called microfiche when it was commonly a means for long-term information storage of print material. Microphotographs of documentation viewed via scrolling a larger piece of film, section, by section, by section. A tedious process no way as immediate as accessing an actual newspaper, magazine or book. It was what it was, an awkward retrieval of data better than no access at all.  

I’m also of an age that recalls shopping by catalogs as originally something done mostly from not having ready availability of brick and mortar presentation of products one could actually try on, try out, or compare one to another.  

Back in the day was hardly a perfect world, but it had an everyday simplicity by which most were mostly kept satisfied. There were only a few television stations to choose from but at least during prime time viewing it was often a matter of which program to settle on because all three networks actually had competitively entertaining shows. Well, more likely two of the three but still a far cry from the frustration of constantly coming up empty in finding something worth watching from the endless channel surfed surplus of entertainment wastelands available today.  

Technology was proselytizing itself 24-7 back then as well, but no way was its worship as all-consuming as today’s concept of culture embraces. TV was awesome for sure, yet my friends and I nevertheless much preferred slapping around a Pinky with a broomstick. Staying out past dark, no matter what we were up to, totally beat even “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” Nothing could compete with just hanging out around a clandestine campfire with one’s peer group doing nothing more than being together, shooting the breeze and having each other’s back against nothing in particular. The one certainty in that long ago childhood was that none of us were ever expecting a phone call, only the inevitable call of comfortably distanced parents shouting out an always dreaded but ultimately accepted curfew.  

Today, technology’s become a self-imposed Stockholm Syndrome of inescapable dependency. Adults and children held captive to a digital world so seductive and addictive that what once was known in my youth as “TV Time” now has no boundaries. Constant media consumption doesn’t so much dominate our lives as our lives are its willing extension. Our captors are continually refining their programming of individually targeted e-crafted behavioral influence. It’s like some sort of darkly conspiratorial evil genius world domination scenario worthy of a James Bond movie. Way too much like one. The difference is that a solitary and singular 007 is no match against ubiquitously omnipotent ones and zeros turned impersonally villainous.  

“Anti-social media” is now a common critical phrase. Its manipulation by those wishing to undermine our democratic civility, bad actors foreign or domestic, is just another downside of a digitally torn social fabric that’s becoming more and more acknowledged yet more and more tolerated.  

“Be Internet Awesome is a multifaceted program … to teach kids how to be safe and responsible explorers of the online world. To make the most of the Internet, kids need to be prepared to make smart decisions. Be Internet Awesome teaches kids the fundamentals of digital citizenship and safety so they can explore the online world with confidence. Good (and bad) news travels fast online, and without some forethought, kids can find themselves in tricky situations that have lasting consequences. The solve? Learning how to share with those they know and those they don’t.”  

The most alarming part of Google’s above excerpted PR campaign of damage control is its surreally disconcerting “The solve?” Are we really going to go down that rabbit hole of techie imposed slippery-slope language abuse? How soon until “The solve?” devolves so far as to become an actual emoji? How did we arrive at our now pervasive preference for non-verbal disconnected communication? Almost everyone’s packing a cell phone of one caliber or another yet how many actually still aim for direct vocal interaction? Texting and tweeting speak volumes as to our increasingly disembodied cohabitation of insulated and curt exchanges now passing for socialization. We’ve become a New Yorker cartoon reality where people text each other from within the same room.  

Microfiche and shopping catalogs had and have much familiar similarity with today’s Internet and Amazon. Actually, it’s more accurately the other way around. The first two are now one. Information access itself has become a major commodity best accompanied by as much product placement as possible. What have we really gained, or more importantly lost, from so much supposedly advanced current technology?  

Microfiche and Sears never kept dossiers of what was being searched or shopped, or psychologically profiled the scanning of images displayed. Traditional postal servicing doesn’t read private correspondence and then deliver endless junk mail reflecting revealed confidential information. I’ve never, ever intended to correspond with a single party and inadvertently copied and stamped the same letter to an entire group.  

Internet awesomeness? I still just don’t get it.  

Gary Anderson lives in Bath.