A World Within Darkness

The event that could have been but never was. I was recently in Iceland, a trip for the bucket list. I took a trip at night to see the Aurora. Unfortunately, they were not playing ball that night, but whilst I sat rocking, I listened to commentary about them. One moment the voice over the speakers described, was the event that was predicted that never happened. The Millennium Bug was one thing; however, many theorists believed the world would end in 2012.

Whilst the ending of the world was a myth, scientists had described that the large solar flares that create the Northern lights, could have passed Earth, meaning the internet would cease to exist for the next ten years, meaning, 2022 would have been the year the internet was working once more.

Imagining a world without the internet isn’t far-fetched as we existed many years without it. If the internet ceased to work back in 2012, how would life be different? For a start, Covid would have been very different. No Zoom to keep in contact with family and friends. No face time in hospitals. As humanity, we would have felt cut off from the rest of the world.

Pandemics have come before, however. In the 1920’s, during the ’flu pandemic, which killed thousands, there was no contact outside the people you lived with or saw face to face. The issue is, now we are used to the internet, we are used to having it there, we rely on it for everything. Money, communication, security. It’s our daily life. If it was taken away from us, how soon would we forget about it? Move on.

FOMO or Fear of Missing Out, has become synonymous with social media. Seeing people posting images of themselves, posting exciting tweets, wanting to catch up on the news. If we were the only person without excess, we feel lonely, though if we were all in the same boat, would we feel the same overwhelming feeling of depression and anxiety that the internet isn’t there anymore and, in the end, would we be better for it?

How can you miss something you never experienced in the first place? If this event did occur back in 2012, we would feel lost for the first few days, weeks, perhaps months but as humans we move on. Similarly, with the TIKTOK ban happening in America, people would be lost without it, but would get used to a new normal, we always have.

It’s strange to think of a world now without the internet, especially in 2025 where we rely on everything for it. In 2012, yes, it was an important presence in people’s lives, but over these last thirteen years or so, I feel we have come to expect so much more from it. 67.1 % of people worldwide use the internet today in 2025, which is double that in 2012 being 33.5 % which shows how much the internet has expanded over the years.

If the internet were to vanish today, I feel there would be a bigger impact on daily life, as it is used more frequently. Again, after a few days or weeks however, surely if everyone was in the same boat, we couldn’t miss out.

The Earth and our Universe are an unpredictable place. Scientists have predicted, but ultimately, we do not know what it has in store for us. Natural disasters can happen at any time and very often there is little that can be done about it.

Listening to this narration on the boat, where I saw no Northern Lights, made me think how small we are on this planet, how one thing can change our entire perspective in this world. Humans have developed so many expansive ways to improve technology over the last few decades, so much so it has changed how we live our lives. However, there is a hubris in us that believes we are indestructible, that Earth cannot take all that away in a blink of an eye.

Especially with the internet, all our data, our personal history, our medical, financial information is now stored there. Which makes me think, if the internet was taken away, how would we manage to recreate that information, going back to a time where we would rely on physical copies for medical records and personal data. Is the internet, as it is now, safer, or potentially vulnerable that our entire existence lives in the cloud, if that were to vanish who would we be?

Who were we before the internet? After all, it wasn’t that long ago and yet many people have been born not knowing a world without it. For the Gen Z and Gen Alpha, life has always been online, ever since they have been alive. For many generations, we can remember a time without it. Perhaps we have forgotten, but we can remember that point in time. For these generations coming through, a world not being online is unthinkable, it’s all they’ve ever known, so could they adapt to a society without the internet there?

Times change. In another thirty years the internet could be a thing of the past, and we move on. At this time in our lives, being online is a large part of most people’s lives and to take that away would be unthinkable, but as the decades move on, many technological advancements we thought were important, are no longer needed, such as VHS, CDs, Walkman’s, and typewriters.

Perhaps, in the not-so-distant future, the internet could be replaced by something that combines everything we could possibly need, as the technology listed has been replaced by smart phones, a device that combines all entertainment into one.

Afterall, we cannot know what will happen to the internet. Perhaps solar flares from the sun could wipe it all away, or as humans we could invent something even more impressive. At first, when I heard the narrator on the tannoy, speak about this phenomenon, it worried me, being cut off from a world we have gotten used to, but now, having thought more about it, life moves on and we can just let the future decide what happens next.