Another question:

If it bothers you that someone is constantly “playing with their phone” during davening, why can’t you just go over to them and be mochiach (rebuke) them? I mean at the end of davening one time and in private.

Does it mean that you maybe haven’t even given the person a Shalom Aleicheim? Maybe you and interacted with them over time in a manner that they would genuinely feel that your chastisement is meant out of a genuine concern ) for their ruchnius?

If you’re unable to achieve that “ve’ahavta rayecha kamocha”, if one can’t do anything real about it, maybe one should at least learn not be “sickened”.

<Climbs on soapbox>

This is a huge step forward from simply imposing upon the community a ban on the internet or trying to limit use of the internet only to the work environment. A bigger problem, maybe, is that there’s a whole segment of the frum community that seems to be so desensitized that they believe that the internet isn’t a problem at all.

It’s argued that the internet is a tool. It’s like an ax or chain saw. One can use an ax for chopping firewood or wood for furniture. It can also damage or even kill. The internet itself is not evil. It depends how one chooses to use it. There are, for instance, tens of thousands of MP3 shiurim of various types available for download.

No doubt there was initial resistance to using technology when it first came out. The telephone could have been used for loshen hora. Tape recorded shiurim mean it’s impersonal and one loses the benefit of the interaction with the maggid shiur. This technology is long well entrenched in the frum community and the benefits outweigh the downfalls.

Software filters may or may not work but maybe the filter that we need to learn is the Neshama filter. If we as a community had a constant realization how precious everyone’s neshamos are and what our true purpose in this world is, maybe we wouldn’t succumb so easily.

The problem isn’t only pritzus or apikorsis, there are issues of shmiras haloshen, including various segments of the frum community who seem to get a type of satisfaction from bashing others segments, instead of working on themselves and promoting achdus.

The “culture” around us venerates entertainment and fun. It glorifies those who lead immoral and degenerate lives, foreign to Torah values.

Mostly, however, the internet is time’s blackhole. Once someone starts reading even the news, it’s amazing how fast time goes. Even if bitul Torah wouldn’t be a problem, it’s amazing how one gets sucked in and does not get more important (even derech eretz) things done.

<Climbs off soapbox>