How the digital age makes us uneasy

By Tom Ehrich 

It seems a lifetime ago. But there was a day when I knew nothing about computers. 

Then a parishioner loaned me his Macintosh personal computer, and almost overnight, I was hooked. I loved writing sermons and newsletters on the screen. I loved storing data and creating spreadsheets to manage church life. 

I began buying computers, each one more capable than the last. Floppy disks gave way to hard drives, color-capable screens arrived and changeable fonts, and then, mirabile dictu, the Internet, email and browsing, software suites, apps, and social media.  

I soon learned that a computer is just a tool. It doesn’t correct the “evil that lurks in the hearts of men.” It just gives another way to lie and cheat, or less toxically, to enter incorrect information. As they say in the data world, “garbage in, garbage out.”  

Even so, the digital age seemed like magic for a while. Newsletters with photos could reach into every office and household. The Internet truly made the world’s information available with a keystroke. Social media connected people with immediacy and intimacy.  

Then the trolls came to town. They turned email addresses into an avenue for predatory marketing. They made the photos dishonest and lurid. Internet villains stole identities, launched cyberattacks, and ransacked credit cards. Social media became a cesspool for humanity’s ugliness.  

Even the good guys succumbed. Microsoft, for example, learned to make products so difficult to use that you needed an expensive support contract to use them. Google promised to do good, then discovered the vast profits of doing evil. Facebook went straight to greed. Apple discovered profitable ways to lock out competitors. Privacy has vanished. Bad people peddled lies, made us doubt the very idea of truth, and then launched a computer-coordinated attack on democracy. 

Old news? No, it’s breaking into our lives every day and, in my opinion, is a primary cause of the unease and unrest that we feel. It isn’t just the coronavirus or Russia or partisan hackery. We also face being undermined by the very technology we have embraced. Our devices are working against us, or more accurately, they make it too easy for bad actors to hurt us.  

The enemy isn’t technology as such. As always, the enemy is the power of darkness working through other people. We are, in disturbing ways, no safer than our ancestors being chased by animals, then by vandals bent on destruction. We had thought it would be better than this.  

Is the way forward junking our devices, pulling up the drawbridge, and giving into anti-social survivalism? No, the better way is always to live in the open, with an open heart for loving others, open hands for helping others, with a mind open to knowledge and a soul open to God.  

But we need to know that it won’t be easy or comfortable or safe.