Deadly Attraction
107 Trillion.
Add to that 152 million blogs, 25 billion Twitter messages that are sent out per year, 50 billion notices on Facebook per month, 2 billion videos viewed on YouTube per day, over 5 billion photos already posted on Flickr, another 36 billion pictures that are uploaded to another popular site each year, the over 366 million websites now in existence and millions more that are being added each year. The above information should give you an idea of how many billions of hours are being spent on nonsense or worse by the estimated 2 billion internet users around the globe. It should also bear witness to the terrible addiction which results from connecting to this universe of information.
In one extreme case, a couple in Korea would spend 12 hours a day away from home on the internet. They would run home once a day to feed their three-year-old daughter. She died of dehydration and malnutrition. There have been incidents of people who assaulted and even shot others for posting negative comments or embarrassing photos about them.
One 15-year-old shot his own father after his internet privileges were revoked. The problem of the internet being used by teenagers to attack and ridicule others and the resulting emotional issues has become so alarming that in 2006 the CDC (Center for Disease Control, a federal agency) called a conference to address the crisis.
While all these cases involve non-Jews, it is important to realize that we are playing the same game of Russian roulette as they are. The consequences cannot possibly lag far behind.
It has been documented in the medical world that internet users who are blocked access to the web suffer the same physical withdrawal symptoms as hard-core drug abusers. In one case, students were denied access entirely and 79% reported suffering severe edginess and depression. It would be extremely foolish for anyone to convince themselves that they are above internet addiction.
The Jewish world has suffered its share as well. In one case, several years ago, a man was spending night and day tied to his screen. His wife complained that she could not go on living with a husband like that and he would have to choose between the internet and his family. By then it was too late. He chose the internet.
But the situation does not have to be so extreme. Even those who do not drop out of life entirely find that the internet has them bound up sufficiently to materially interfere with their lives. When a parent sits down to supper with one hand holding the fork and the other his smartphone, from which he cannot unglue his eyes, that parent may be sitting with the family in a technical sense, but the children realize they are technology orphans. Their emotional needs cannot compete with the lure of the web.
This widespread irreverence completely undermines our chinuch. It is has eroded our most basic values and created an atmosphere in which nothing we preach is taken seriously. It is destroying us as a nation of servants of Hashem in a way that nothing we have ever faced before could have done.