Ultra-Orthodox Internet

by The Awl

In the future, the great internet rally of 2012 might be seen as the prescient start of a global movement to grapple with the impact of this amazing and beguiling series of tubes. Addiction, distraction, stupidity and the erosion of privacy and intimacy have already been identified as some of the web’s deleterious effects. But to the 5,0000 ultra-Orthodox Jews who came to New Yorks Citi Field last month on the urgings of their rabbis and yeshivas, the problem had a rare urgency. All these effects make the Web unkosher for a community steeped in piety and tradition (one in which television is already mostly prohibited).

The internet is clearly a force to be wrestled with or at least to kvetch about.