the internet: ecosystem, engine, escape

The internet is all three.
We find inputs around which to orient ourselves for "nourishment". These our feeds.
We find tools to accelerate our actions and answer our questions. These our browsers.
We find opiates to numb ourselves amidst a torrent of identityless "others" in this pool. These our content.

You see, not only did the internet result in a change of these 3 E's, but it created new categories for them. New barriers and pitfalls, languages and psychologies, rules and rewards.
It created a new ecosystem within which, without virtues or a guide, we revert to a war of all against all. It created an engine without which we have become unable to understand, reason, or engage the world. It created an escape that takes us farther away from our humanity than we've ever gone.

A perfectly analogous relationship is to the vast exploration of space we peek over the cusp of. Astronauts experience a disembodied realization of their untethered souls from the earth. A whole new landscape is laid before them with fundamental laws in an altered state. An engine of philosophy and progress, space presents us with reasons to strive or spiral in whatever direction our bias directs. Escape from a so-called sinking ship, framed in wonder and excitement when the reality, though inspiringly beautiful, is cold and dark.

Like this exploration, the fledgling internet age has so much on offer. Offered and accepted. We must be aware, the integration of the web into our lives is a full remodel of the human experience. We are not just encumbered by internet accoutrements, but engrossed within its whimsy.

Carr writes about hyperlinking thinking (the irony of what I'm about to do is not lost on me), Smith about binary re-identification, and Dyson about time as an illusion in the digital world. All are certain of one thing:
In the last 20 years of computing technology and the internet working upon humankind, it is hard to say we are evolved in any way.