Disconnected: What We Lose When the Internet Goes Dark

11 minutes ago

5 min read

The Dreamers

We pretend that caring is a burden and not a birthright. Rolling our eyes and making careless jokes. Like cynical know-it-alls, we’ve convinced ourselves the world is ending anyway. But isn’t that only the mask we wear to hide our aspirations from the world? Nonchalant in public, so we are allowed to care in private. Underneath the jokes and our laissez-faire attitudes, we are dreamers.

Most of us have learned to dream online.

I grew up with the internet at my fingertips. It was a vast universe where I could do anything I could want or dream of. I would chase whatever question tumbled through my head at midnight, find strange music nobody around me knew was an option, see images of places I had never imagined before, and greet people who believed in the same world I thought I alone dreamed of. Online was the sanctuary where I could escape from the people around me and become my truest self, instead of imitating the people around me to become who they wanted me to be.

I am who I am because of the internet. A writer, a designer, an entrepreneur. With just a screen, two hands and a connection, I was able to change the world around me. So when I know someone cannot access such a vast world, it’s more than a personal inconvenience. It feels like a valued part of humanity being locked out of the future they could build.

The Cut

In June 2024, the federal Affordable Connectivity Program ran out of funding and ended [1]. For around 23 million households, it had covered $30 a month of their internet bill, or $75 on Tribal lands [1]. And just like that, internet affordability for about 1 in 6 American households came under threat [2].

The results were utterly predictable. Around 5 million households dropped from their internet service providers [1]. In a national survey after the program ended, roughly 40% of respondents confessed to cutting back on food just to stay connected [3].

Read that again! Families, in THE USA, forced to choose between dinner and an internet connection. That tells you how essential the connection has become. Millions of people wouldn’t choose between food and the internet if it were just a luxury.

Detroit

Here in Detroit, the program supported more than 100,000 households, roughly 4 in 10 homes in the city [4][5]. That’s our neighbor who says “what up doe” when we pass every morning. That’s the classmate we talk to every night as we finish the group project. That’s the family down the block who heats up the grill every summer and invites you to the cookout.

While the help lasted, Detroit got connected fast. The share of homes with wired home internet rose from about 54% in 2019 to about 68% in 2023 [6]. Thousands of homes connected to the internet for the first time.

When the money dried up, the effort to create a connected Detroit was put at risk. A city on the brink of rebirth now risks leaving its citizens behind in a rapidly evolving world.

The Children

A University of Michigan research project found that about 70% of Detroit’s school-age children had no internet access at home [7]. And when schools shut down in 2020, the Detroit Public Schools Community District estimated that 90% of its students lacked a device and an internet connection [8]. Can you imagine thousands of students falling victim to the digital divide?

Access to literacy is one of the biggest unintended casualties of disconnection. The internet is the biggest library ever built, and best of all, it has no closing time. A child with a connection has the opportunity to learn coding, sewing, drawing, video editing, another language and so much more. Financial barriers are lifted too. They can discover a song from Mongolia and fall in love with a culture they never knew existed. They can exchange stories with a child in Lagos, become pen pals with a child in Montego Bay, learn the best bibimbap recipe from a friend in Seoul or learn what life looks like in Sydney.

They gain the ability to see everything the world has to offer, free from the limitations of the world around them. For many, the internet is the most accessible ladder out of poverty, because it has made education much more affordable. Knowledge has never been more accessible.

A child without access is losing out on more than just finishing their homework. They are cut off from the map to the future the world is building. If we let the gap grow, they will be left behind. Every year offline is a year away from the limitless possibilities of education, community and workforce development.

The Practical Stakes

Our dreams matter, just as much as our everyday life.

Today, almost every service can be done online. Apply for your dream job, file your yearly taxes, sign up for government benefits and healthcare, pay your bills and say “I pay my bills and my bills stay paid,” schedule your yearly checkup, check in with your child’s school and see their grades. These used to take a trip across town, a long wait in some boring lobby, and a whole day off work, all for something that took a clerk only minutes to accept or reject.

For many parents, staying connected is how they provide. It is how they find better-paying jobs, start side hustles, further their education, or cash in on hobbies they’ve always loved. If they’re disconnected, they lose time and life-changing opportunities.

Without a connection, the world moves on without you.

Still Connected

There is still hope. Some local libraries, like the Detroit Public Library, are letting families borrow hotspots and laptops [9]. Local nonprofits like Human-I-T are refurbishing old laptops and providing them to families to keep them connected [10]. Other local organizations, like the Hendricks Foundation, are teaching people how to repair devices and use new tools, so the connection lasts longer than a single subsidy.

The internet is meant to bring our world closer together. It is where we found each other, our voices, and ourselves. To allow millions of people to remain disconnected from that world would leave a stain on history, one we can start preventing today.

We are dreamers, even when we pretend not to be. And every dreamer deserves to be connected to their dreams.