There's something to be said for progress. For starters, it's made the world smaller: It now takes only six hours to traverse the country by plane, as opposed to the months it took 150 years ago by wagon. Mankind has explored the far reaches of space, as well as the inner components of our bodies. We now have much longer lives.But do we have substantially better ones? What do we sacrifice in the name of convenience?

It took me a while to figure out the right word to use, but here it is: humanity. We sacrifice our humanity for the sake of convenience and progress.

A British cell phone company is offering a new study-aid service to students: Text messaged summaries of, and quotations from, classic literature. Hamlet's soliloquy, for example, becomes "2b? Nt2b? ???"

And English teachers thought Cliffs Notes were bad enough.

I'm a classics and history major, so given that my mind usually is in the past, this new development makes me pretty mad. As Cicero bewailed the political corruption of his day, so too must I mourn the cultural corruption of our own: "Oh the times, oh the morals!"

By morals, I don't mean the morality of using a study aid. What I decry is the thought that great works of literature can be summarized adequately in four abbreviated lines or less. What frustrates me is the notion that plot is the most important part of these texts. These great books, plays and poems are not important because of what happens, but because of what they say about us-the themes and the questions these works raise. There's a reason why the discipline is called the "humanities."

Speaking of subverting the way things should be, the Internet has gone too far. Barring classes, eating and hygiene, you have no need to leave your room-ever. Everything you could possibly want access to, you can reach through the telephone wire; it's all on the Internet. You can research, browse and shop. Hell, you needn't hear another person's voice ever again, thanks to instant messaging and e-mail. Human contact? Forget it!-if you don't care about selling your soul to the machines.

But there is something unnatural about not speaking to someone vocally. Over the Internet, verbal cues are lost; as one of the more sarcastic people out there, I find this to be a major failing. I realize this is also true with letter-writing, which has been around for millennia-but at least that leaves us with something tangible to keep.

You know instant messaging has gone too far when people begin to use the techno-jargon verbally. Some see the decay of our society in the sex and violence in the mainstream media; I see it when somebody says "LOL" instead of actually laughing out loud.

Now, I don't consider myself to be a Luddite or anything; I do talk to people online, and I do send e-mails, but there are such things as moderation and selectivity. I make sure never to have an important conversation over the Internet. It's unseemly, and it degrades the conversation. We all know people who've used the Internet to ask someone out. Talk about romantic.

I have the sinking feeling that it's too late for this process to stop. I suppose instead of writing this entire article, I should have just written: "guy p.o.'d @ tchnlgcl prgrS." It wouldn't have given you anything of substance, but you would have saved precious minutes.