Necessity or luxury?

Governments must prioritise necessities over luxuries. They should never use our taxes for projects that they can’t prove will be good for the community. It is not clear whether the internet is doing more harm than good to the human species. But what is incontestable is that it is a luxury. Human beings don’t need it to flourish - the internet pales into insignificance compared to the must haves of security, health, housing and education.

That’s why the Federal government’s plan to roll out cable under every street to give us quick internet for the cost of $43 billion will go down in history as Australia’s greatest public waste. Forty-three billion dollars amounts to more than $2,000 for every Australian man, woman and child.

That could be used to build and run more than 50 new major hospitals; or about 50,000 new residences, and forever end the homeless crisis in Australia. In fact so many homes could be built that we would have enough spares to house unwanted pets.

If the government wanted to find out about the effects of encouraging more internet use, it should have jumped on the internet to see what the research says about the impact of the internet. It paints a grim picture, whichever way you Google it.

A recent Neilsen study found that Australian users are spending an average of more than two working days (17 hours) on the internet per week. Younger people spent far more time and broadband access also increases usage times.

Most internet use relates to email, (anti-)social networking sites and trash searches, including video clips and porn.

But what about positive educational outcomes? Well, on balance there probably are none. The research suggests that the internet is probably making us dumber. It allows us to access millions of facts, but does nothing to improve our problem-solving and cognitive capabilities. While screen based learning can enhance visual-spatial intelligence, it weakens our higher level intellectual functions.

It is even more retrograde from a work and health perspective. Online technologies make workers contactable 24/7, breaking the separation between work and family and social life. High internet users report higher levels of stress and anxiety.

And forget out making work more efficient. The media and the financial and legal services sectors have the highest need for internet data and facilities and work hours in those sectors has increased in the internet age. While the internet allows us to do things more quickly, it also results in higher output demands and more stress for workers.

The passivity of computer use is a major reason for obesity emerging as the number one health problem in the Western World.

The internet is also socially isolating. Facebook and Twitter facilitate superficial, meaningless communications which are devoid of emotional and deeper connectedness and cut into the time people have to develop genuine bonds through shared activities with others. The internet is the cause of incalculable emotional distress from bullying and defamatory tweets. The Australian Bureau of Statistics found in 2009, that 3 per cent of children who used the internet experienced some kind of personal safety or security problem on the internet.

It is hardly surprising that in first large-scale study of Western young people looking at the impact of the internet on mental health, psychologists at Leeds found that high internet users “had a higher incidence of moderate to severe depression than normal users”.

The popularity of the internet as a pastime simply highlights the weakness of the human will. It is a total victory of apathy over industriousness. It underlines the way in which we prefer short term escapism (which requires no effort) to meaningful endeavours which provide real levels of achievement and stimulation.

Studies by well-being researchers have repeatedly shown that happy people are those who pursue active pastimes, such as exercise, gardening and face-to-face socialising instead of passive pastimes.

Ten years ago, few people spent any time on the internet. The world was probably a better place. Even now, it is possible to lead a full, complete and successful life without the internet, and certainly you can do it without super fast internet. For proof, just look at independent federal MP Tony Windsor. He is one of the two most powerful men in the country. He has admitted that he has never used a computer in his life.

There is however, no link between lack of internet usage and honesty and integrity. Remarkably, the “official” reason given by Windsor for siding with Labor was because only Labor would give us fast internet. Even after his admission that he can’t tell the difference between a computer and a washing machine, Windsor won’t publicly admit that his preference for Labor was merely an adolescent instinct to settle old personal scores with the National party.

The government needs to abandon its $43 billion cable roll out to make the internet faster. If it has a fanatical desire to spend $43 billion on a project relating to the internet, it would be better off spending the money encouraging people to get off the internet and go outside and do things that connect with the real world.

Forty three billion spent on parks, recreational and sporting facilities, libraries, swimming pools and community halls would have produced massive increases to community and individual prosperity. Instead it’s being spent in a way that will encourage us to spend more time on a tool that will probably make us even dumber, less socially connected, fatter and more unhealthy - sure proof that focus groups have already been made stupid by too much internet.