Smile Children
Guardian, 30 January 1996 / Distant voices, ill lives by Mark Slouka

A somewhat sensationalist article on the negative, long-term effects of the internet, taken from a new book by Mark Slouka. 'We the new drones of the digital hive will disappear in a rapture of submission'. Individualism, the writer believes, will fade, replaced by 'the great truth of our collective identity made clear through the offices of that "global mind", the Net. Absorbed into the anonymous nature of the mob we will quickly and gladly relinquish our will, our intelligence and our beliefs ..for the glory of the hive'. A sobering final paragraph notes 'we've seen the human hive before. Recall what happened when it last decided to swarm. I hear the dull drone of 50,000 at Nuremberg'.