This is the second installment of Information Warfare, Vol. 1: REVISITED, an edited series drawn from Winn Schwartau’s early-1990s chapter on technology, trust and information warfare. Part 1 explored our need for computers and our distrust of them. Here, Schwartau turns to digital addiction: what happens when we can no longer function without the systems we depend on.
Digital addiction
As Thomas Hughes observed, “The price we pay for a cornucopia of goods and services is slavery.” Our addiction to technology makes that observation difficult to dismiss. We welcome each new tool because it makes life easier, faster or more entertaining. Before long, we find it difficult to imagine life without it.
Video games offer one example. Nintendo and Sega draw people into hours of interactive entertainment. Hackers can become just as absorbed in their keyboards, screens and journeys through cyberspace. Virtual reality promises to immerse us still further. The gadgets change, but the attraction remains: technology offers gratification on demand.
When convenience becomes necessity
Our addiction goes well beyond entertainment. Once a society becomes accustomed to high-speed computers, instant communications and services at the push of a button, it is almost impossible to wean people from them.
Marshall McLuhan described emerging information networks as extensions of our nervous systems. By that reasoning, losing access to an ATM can feel like losing the use of a limb. People panic when their computers go down.
Businesses are no different. Financial markets rely on rapidly assimilating vast amounts of information. When their systems fail, the losses can accumulate by the hour. Governments, too, have woven computers into nearly every essential function. Try conducting modern warfare, issuing benefits or processing taxes without them.
The human reaction is part of the attack
The Information Warrior understands both our dependence on technology and our reaction when it fails. Disabling a network or corrupting a system creates immediate operational problems. But the attack does not stop at the technical failure.
The attacker can count on fear, distrust and confusion to magnify the damage. People lose confidence. Businesses stall. Organizations struggle to explain what happened, even as those who rely on them demand answers.
That is the strategic advantage of digital addiction: the more essential a system becomes, the more disruptive even a temporary failure can feel. The machine is only part of the target. The people who rely on it are the rest.
Next in the series
Part 3 examines information overload and the media filters that shape what we believe. More information does not necessarily mean better judgment.
Also in this series:
Winn Schwartau
