Some months ago, I stopped by Haines School to chat with an administrator. 

A volleyball tournament was underway and some of the girls’ teams, those who were not playing at that moment, were in small groups around the school, doing what modern youth do. About three-fourths were seated and hunched over their smartphones. 

One might assume they were scrolling through some social media app. Spines and neck curved to the task, sedentary, interest, attention and stress hormones captured. Certainly, some of their time, stress and focus would have been being motivated, and tracked, by some profitable algorithm that didn’t exist 25years ago. 

Back then, a random group of high school students might have been talking, cutting-up, doing paper/pencil homework, playing hacky sack or some other stress-lowering physical game. Zero would have scrolled their phones. I view the difference — now versus 25 years ago — as the “better service” promised by 5G. Better for whom?

Faster algorithms promoting bogus conspiracy theories and deep-fake AI lies? Better access to pornography and sexual violence — a remarkable percentage of internet searches already? Better body image obsession? Better stress-triggers for a populous with a progressively shorter attention span? Better dopamine triggers to exacerbate the obesity — now on track to describe 60% of U.S. adults in 2050?  

These “better services” are not hypothetical. Beyond locating towers and NIMBY, might we consider 5G in the full context of lightning-fast changes to health and society? We will not — we cannot — comprehend these changes without much more thought, indeed, much more soul searching.

Burl Sheldon