“Isn’t it time you came out of the dark ages?” The teacher was referring to the fact that as a graduating high school senior my daughter has no e-mail address; nor has she mastered the workings of a flash drive. Computer illiterate? That does not concern me; she will gain those skills the same way I did, on the job. But at least she is not addicted to a piece of metal and wires. That would really scare me.

It was the day the New York Times started a series on information addiction with “Hooked on gadgets, and paying a mental price,” and I had just read a Wall Street Journal piece by Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our Brains.

Based on numerous studies and the research of eminent neuroscientists and psychologists, Carr’s thesis is that heavy Internet use and constant multi-media exposure is actually re-wiring our brains. We are losing the capacity to engage in deep thinking, contemplation, and reflection. “The web never encourages us to slow down. It keeps us in a state of mental locomotion.”

Dark Ages? Picture a country where almost 1 million 20-30 year-olds show symptoms of Internet addiction, where a baby recently died of neglect and malnutrition while her parents played computer games all night and a mother was killed by her son after she warned him of his obsession. Computer parlors are open 24-hours a day and 90 percent of homes have high speed Internet access. Does South Korea, arguably the most wired nation on the planet, represent what you want for your child? Have we lost our minds?

Critical thinking, inductive problem solving, imagination, and creativity are all victims of the information age. But it is not too late for a strong dose of common sense and humility to activate the power of these God-given gifts and put things into reverse. Old-fashioned, simple stuff like assigning a reading list to your child this summer (real books foster deep thinking), making unplugged family time a top priority, visiting an old-folks home, or volunteering at a soup kitchen.

Leave that gadget behind and plug your child into the natural world. A city park, a river, or the ocean. Wait too long and you will miss the opportunity to foster that sense of wonder inborn in every child. Act now and the child will be better able to resist the gods of technology.

Rachel Carson spent a lifetime studying the sea and the world around us. She writes that those who “dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living.”

Why is this important? Rabbi Abraham Heschel has written that a “return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom, for the discovery of the world as an allusion to God. Wisdom comes from awe rather than from shrewdness. It is evoked not in moments of calculation but in moments of being in rapport with the mystery of reality. The greatest insights happen to us in moments of awe.”

Einstein wrote that the “most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed out candle.”  

When a mass of candles are snuffed out a whole society goes dark. But when each of us addicts does daily battle with the selfishness that feeds our fix, the painful and beautiful journey back to a God-given future lights up the darkness. It is worth every sacrifice. The choice is clear, and ours to make.

 

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Well nice thoughts ... sprituality can be achieved by only those who seek it ... so well the problem lies not with science or technology... it lies with human mind which is as problamatic as its complex

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