But just the same, I think there's something to this concern of mine that we're all rapidly being submerged by status updates and looking-up-of-trivia on our iPhones. To wit, via Swoodie, comes this nice piece in Salon Magazine called "Digital Nation": what has the Internet done to us?.
Let's see, so the digital revolution led us all to this: a gigantic, commercial, high school reunion/mall filthy with insipid tabloid trivia, populated by perpetually distracted, texting, tweeting demi-humans. Yes, the information age truly is every bit as glorious and special as everyone predicted it would be!
Apparently our futuristic "Blade Runner"-esque digital dystopia is so bewildering that even Internet "big idea" man Douglas Rushkoff is currently reconsidering his unconditional love for new media in Frontline's "Digital Nation" (premieres 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2, on PBS, check local listings), an in-depth investigation into the possibilities and side effects of our digital immersion.
"I want the luxury of being able to push the pause button, you know," Rushkoff, one of the producers of this 90-minute report, muses to the other producer, Rachel Dretzin, as the cameras roll. Rushkoff says he wants to "really ask whether we're tinkering with some part of ourselves that's a little bit deeper than we might realize at first. You know, how are we changing what it means to be a human being by using all this stuff?"
Every generation since Shakespeare has been changing what it means to be a human being. Change is inevitable. If you care about the human condition, the only choice is to embrace the new forms and make them your own.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't mean you have to match Robert Scoble for every tweet. On the contrary, use technology differently.
I personally don't get what people are talking about when they say that they are overwhelmed by being online and can't "press the pause button". I think they assume that they have to say yes to everything or risk being left behind by their peers. They also, like Rushkoff, probably have a very limited understanding of what they're getting into. (In one of his books, Rushkoff once wrote an entire page about the malicious new menace on the web called "cookies".)
I assume by default that I'm going to be saying no to new online communication channels at least 10x or 100x as much as yes, and I don't think I'm exactly a Luddite.