In 2007, the internet was a place of possibility.
Wikipedia, thoughtful blogs, forums of genuine inquiry – it was messy, yes, but it was fertile. A curious mind could wander, learn, and grow.
Today, that internet is gone. In its place stands a sleek, addictive machine designed not to educate, but to distract.
The internet no longer facilitates learning – it actively obstructs it.
Apps are not neutral. They are insidious and malignant, engineered to activate addiction pathways in your child’s brain.
They masquerade as tools of empowerment while quietly eroding attention spans, reading stamina, and the capacity for deep thought.
Cognitive scientist Daniel T Willingham puts it plainly: “There is just not much evidence that the digital age has prompted an intellectual renaissance.”
That applies to adults as much as children.
READING MUST BE PROTECTED
We now live in a world where children spend five hours a day scrolling through mindless garbage.
They can no longer read – not because they’re incapable, but because the muscle of sustained attention has atrophied.
Reading is a discipline distinct from listening, watching, or other forms of literacy.
It must be honed. It must be protected. And it is being annihilated.
Phones must be removed from classrooms. At minimum.
We cannot teach children to think while allowing the very tools that prevent thinking to sit in their pockets, buzzing with every algorithmic whisper.
The ruling class benefits from illiteracy. A population that cannot read critically cannot resist effectively.
This is not a glitch – it is the design.
Short-form video entertains more than it sticks.
It floods the brain with dopamine but leaves no residue of insight. It is the perfect tool for a culture that values stimulation over substance.
And we, the adults, are not exempt. We possess devices capable of accessing the entirety of human knowledge – and we use them to look at pictures of cats and argue with strangers.
A CONDUIT OF COMPLIANCE
Edward O Wilson once said, “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.”
That imbalance is not just philosophical – it is existential.
We are living in a Great Disappointment, not unlike the Millerites of 1844, who waited for salvation that never came.
Today’s artificial intelligence evangelists promise a techno-utopia, but what they deliver is a plagiarism generator, a shortcut to thoughtlessness, a conduit of compliance.
We must stop pretending this is progress.
We must stop telling children that the internet is a bastion of knowledge when it is, in fact, a graveyard of attention.
We must stop investing our hopes in lies dressed as innovation. Absolutely no one comes to save us but us.
– Nguvitjita Meeja is a cultural critic and advocate for radical literacy. The views expressed here are entirely his and not of his employer.
