Mark Andrews: Amid a global 'outage', should we reconsider our relationship with the internet?
Outage. That's a word you never heard a few years ago. Or 'digital pandemic' as it was described in one of the more sensationalist headlines.
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As I listened to the radio on my drive into work, I was bracing myself for the end of civilisation. The broadcasters put on their best serious voice to tell us that a 'Cobra meeting' had been called. Had all the warnings about the Millennium Bug finally come true?
Yet, as I arrived at the office, it all seemed remarkably unremarkable. The lift still took me up to the desired floor, my electronic pass key allowed me into the newsroom, and the computer functioned as it did the day before. As Mark Twain didn't quite say, reports about the death of the world as we know it may have been somewhat exaggerated.
Of course, that's no consolation to the thousands of people who have seen their holidays ruined, their medical appointments cancelled, or their businesses disrupted. But, maybe likening it to coronavirus is just a step too far.
