Because the Internet is so new, we still don't really understand

“Because the Internet is so new, we still don't really understand what it is. We mistake it for a type of publishing or broadcasting, because that's what we're used to. So people complain that there's a lot of rubbish online, or that it's dominated by Americans, or that you can't necessarily trust what you read on the Web.” Thus spoke Douglas Adams, the philosopher-clown of the modern age, whose wit disguised deep truths. In this passage, Adams reminds us that the Internet is no mere tool of transmission, no simple stage upon which voices shout and vanish. It is something vaster, stranger, more profound: a living, shifting fabric of human connection, unlike anything before it. And because it is new, men see it only through the cloudy mirror of old habits.

The ancients, too, stumbled when faced with revolutions of thought. When the printing press emerged, many mistook it for a mere scribe that wrote faster. Few could grasp that it would birth the Reformation, spread science, and overthrow kingdoms. Likewise, when electricity came, people thought it little more than a brighter candle. They could not imagine cities aglow at midnight, or voices traveling instantly across oceans. So too do we, children of this age, mistake the Internet for a new kind of book or a louder kind of radio. We see only rubbish, noise, and excess—yet beneath this clamor lies a force capable of reshaping the destiny of humankind.

Consider the fall of the Berlin Wall. The great Iron Curtain was not toppled by tanks alone, but by whispers that traveled through underground presses, foreign broadcasts, and, later, digital networks. In the years that followed, the Internet became the tool of the voiceless: students in Tiananmen Square sending their pleas to the world, activists in the Arab Spring stirring crowds with calls for freedom, and countless others daring to speak in places where silence had long been enforced. If one sees only “rubbish online,” one sees only the surface. Beneath, the web has always been a great equalizer, breaking the monopoly of kings, priests, and broadcasters, giving every soul a chance to speak.

Yet Adams warns us of another truth: that trust on the web is fragile. For in the flood of voices, some sing with honesty, while others whisper deceit. Once, men trusted the gatekeepers—the publisher, the broadcaster, the statesman—to guard the boundary between truth and lies. Now that gate has been flung open, and we must learn anew how to discern. To walk the Internet without wisdom is to wander a bazaar of shadows, where treasures lie beside trash, and wisdom beside folly. This is not the failure of the web, but its challenge: freedom demands discernment, just as liberty demands virtue.

The lesson, therefore, is twofold. First: do not dismiss the Internet as rubbish, for in doing so you dismiss the voices of millions whose truths may never reach you otherwise. Second: do not swallow blindly what you see, for in doing so you enslave yourself to lies. Learn instead to weigh, to question, to think. This is the discipline of the digital age, as rhetoric was the discipline of Athens and logic the discipline of Rome. The tools change, but the need for wisdom endures.

Practical actions follow. Teach yourself to ask: “Who speaks? Why do they speak? What do they seek?” Seek knowledge from many voices, not one. Guard yourself from the trap of outrage, for anger is the cheapest currency of the web. And above all, learn to contribute light rather than noise. If you write, let it be with clarity. If you share, let it be with honesty. If you build, let it be with the intent to uplift, not deceive. In this way, you become not merely a consumer of the Internet, but a steward of it.

Thus, Adams’ words echo like prophecy. The Internet is not publishing, nor broadcasting—it is a new continent, vast and uncharted, upon which humanity has just begun to walk. Do not mistake it for the old world, nor curse it for its chaos. Instead, step forward with courage, with humility, with discernment. For the day we truly understand what the Internet is, and learn to shape it with wisdom, is the day we may yet discover that it is not a pit of rubbish at all, but the greatest library, the widest forum, and perhaps the most powerful instrument for unity mankind has ever known.