When the Internet is Good

We all feel it. 

Our screens deliver a ceaseless flow of the upsetting and the trivial. To live with a smartphone is to weather a daily barrage of updates you didn’t ask for: celebrity pets, a grisly crime, the latest outrage that has people talking. 

Welcome to life in the Internet Age. 

We’re conducting a grand experiment. What happens when you drop mankind’s most powerful tool into four billion pockets? Thirty years in, we’ve hit some growing pains, for self and society. Maybe you’ve felt them: the empty ache that follows a marathon scroll. Or the curtain of uncertain that hangs over public life in the age of pandemic-induced paranoia.  

These downsides of the Internet are hard to resist. They tug at our sleeves, those little red dots, snatching our attention, splitting our focus. We give in to the furious blitz of noise – the constant urge to read, react, and share. Slowly we acclimate. We notice the impact only sometimes, in small moments: a startling screen time report. Our inability to sit still with a book. A relative’s oddly sharp views on the jab. 

Our new virtual world divides us and distracts us. But Balaji says that the Internet increases variance, both the bad and the good. So where to look for the good? Something deeper than same-day delivery and SaaS extensions. When does the web leave the world doubtlessly better? What would you say? 

Last Wednesday night brought me an answer. 130 faces spread across five Zoom screens and six continents. The final night of Write of Passage. Student after student sharing stories of growth, new friends, and taking action in the face of fear. Love and support whipping around the world fast as light, a creative celebration that wouldn’t exist without browsers and broadband. 

Who knew you could feel so close to a group of former strangers you’ve never seen offscreen? Who knew the brief, intense bonds of summer camp and study abroad can also appear in five-week cohorts? Who knew a virtual room could feel so alive?   

On Wednesday night, distractions fell silent. Divisions gave way. For ninety minutes, Write of Passage students caught a glimpse of when the Internet is good.