Are we becoming too reliant on the internet? - Leanne Warr

The internet is great, when it works. But what do you do when your network goes down? Photo / 123rf

OPINION

I recently had an issue with my service provider when the network went down and I lost not only my internet but also my calls kept dropping. For reasons I won’t go into, I can’t get fibre.

I’m the generation that saw the early days of the World Wide Web and I’m old enough to remember pre-mobile days when all you had was a landline. I’m still old school in that I prefer to read a physical copy of a book rather than read it on a screen.

Nowadays, everything to do with my work is online. Even writing in Word depends on having a reliable connection as it’s on the network. So when it goes down, it means I can’t do my work.

I get it. We all have the latest devices and it seems like we’re all glued to screens these days, but I have to wonder if perhaps we’re all spending too much time online and less time talking to each other.

I wouldn’t say my phone is practically an extension of my arm – it’s almost a given that I will miss a call occasionally because my phone is down one end of the house and I’m down the other.

The internet certainly has its pros and cons.

I wonder how we would cope if the worst happened, like a natural disaster, and we lost the internet or we were unable to call anyone.

But here’s something that we need to seriously consider, especially for those in rural areas.

What happens if we suddenly have no phone or if we’re out in the wop-wops somewhere and have no connection and we have an emergency – like a fire, or a car accident? Not every device has the ability to call 111 even with no signal.

It’s happened before. I once covered a story on a family who lost everything in a fire and they couldn’t get a signal unless they drove 15 minutes to the main road. While they got out safely, what if it happened to another family who didn’t? It takes mere minutes for a fire to take hold and precious minutes are lost if no one can call out. Not even to emergency services.

Don’t get me wrong. The internet is great, when it works, and it certainly helped during Covid when we were locked down, giving us the ability to keep in touch with friends and family we couldn’t see otherwise.

When it works, it’s good, but when it goes wrong, it can go very wrong.

Leanne Warr is the editor of the Bush Telegraph.