Listen to what top producer-director Barry Sonnenfeld had to say about the mighty Internet during his address at the National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas:

I fear the Internet for so many reasons. The medium is the message, and the medium has invaded our home and taken over our minds. … The really scary part is how hypnotic it is. The Net is so pervasive that kids are on it all day.

[Today's children will grow up with] no concept of the right to privacy and in fact not understand the need for it. Because the Facebook generation is not concerned with what people know about them … they will have no problem with additional governmental supervision, spying and intervention. They will be thrilled that the Internet will be able to follow their every move.

I suspect, we are probably looking at the last generation of Americans that exist in a democracy. Totalitarianism is not far in our future, and the next generation will go down that road happily.

My only hope is the Bush administration has screwed things up so profoundly — socially, economically and environmentally — that perhaps they will be angered by how our generation has selfishly destroyed their future and will put down that computer.