Slashdot Mirror
"Is Technology Unplugging Our Minds?"
Peter Herz writes "Salon has published an article on the effects that technology and "speeding things up" is having on our lives and humanity in general. " Thoughtful piece, playing off of three recent books - Katz's recent Cyberclysm piece deals with much of the same issue.
I personally think that what technology has changed is the interaction, and levels of interaction between ppl, instead of having to wait for the post office to send a letter i can communicate instantly with friends and family. Yes it affects my life, but i think that's a good thing
May the forces of evil be confused on the way to your inbox.
The problem identified here seems to be a lack of free time to enjoy the good things in life. The dependence on technology - like having conversations on a cellphone while on the move - seems to be a timesaving measure. It may be a symptom, but it's not the cause. Throw away the phone, and your life would be worse, not better.
What we need is a society that values pleasure, and places less emphasis on paid work. Sadly I suspect that's some distance away.
--
Xenu loves you!
This topic was discussed (in painstaking detail) in Alvin Toffler's Future Shock. I'm not sure what else there is to say about it after that!
Heck, I bet they said that about the automobile and the radio. I bet someone once said that about fire, darnit.
Ten years ago, I would never have been able to chat in real time with a guy in Japan, or hear the original composition of a Russian musician in MP3. I had to look to biased papers and magazines to get my information, and keeping in touch with distant friends required buying stamps and taking a stroll to the post office, then wait a month.
Yes, there is always a (small) price to pay for technology. By providing us with an easier path, it can also lead to laziness and abuse. But I'm tired of the Luddite speech that technology is all evil and has cut us from our human roots.
Technology is never responsible for that. The people misusing it are.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
In the course of conceiving this paragraph, I checked my e-mail three times and fired off four responses. I took a phone call, visited a few Web sites -- simultaneously, I might add, on two computers -- and perused some posts on an online bulletin board. I snuck a peek at the latest news wires, gobbled some take-out Thai food, read a press release. I did this all while switching back and forth between two Internet radio stations, which I listened to through headphones.
:-)*
This paragraph doesn't seem right.
He said he did all of those things *while conceiving that very paragraph*.
Umm, wouldn't doing all of that be *part* of writing it. I do a lot of things simultaneously (actually it's more of a task-switching mechanism in my brain) but I don't go quite that nuts, even when programming
This guy is falling into a common journalistic trap: going overboard in an attempt to prove a point. A point I, personally, am not worried about. Knowledge is a joy, I crave it.
It's like the local news stations putting "spin" on stories. Embellishing boring items on slow days. I saw a 5 minute bit on a local station (which I despise, btw) about a traffic light in a very low traffic area that briefly kept the red light on when it went green. They waited until the end to say that no accidents ensued. Really, I've seen really dumb people, but none of them were *that* dumb (with the exception of these NTV people that did the story).
Maybe I'm too cynical.
During my collage years an English prof created a multi-disciplinary course on the effect of technology on society/culture - that was like '81 or '82, but we did read some cool books and had interesting discussions; e.g., "Zen & Motorcycle Maintenance", "Existential Pleasures of Engineering", "Mythical Man-Month", oh, BF Skinner's book, uh, Waldon Two (?), and some others.
Personally, I find techno to be enlightening, IT mind expanding, but w/ vast possiblities for BS etc if you get too lost in the upper levels of abstraction (which companies advert as 'easy to use' crap) which alienates one's mind from hard reality. Linux is like a gym where your minds gets a good workout. Another - rots your brain w/ it's zany antics.
Chuck
Little boxes
running windows
and they're all made of ticky-tacky
and they always need rebooting
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Geez!
NT is based on the premise that anyone who can manipulate a mouse can administer a system. Huh?!?
Sunday morning, I'm listening to an inernet radio
station. The host is speculating about things
going on in the world. While he speculates, I'm
running searches on the topics he brings up.
I'm able to keep up with him no problem. A few
years ago I would have had to take notes and hit
the library over the next few days.
Same thing during the Kosovo "war". Talking to
people in Europe on IRC. I'm researching what
they are saying, real time.
It's great.
When things will get really interesting (probably not for at least another 100 years or so...) will be when we understand the brain enough to build robots with human-level perceptive and cognitive capabilities...
There may well come a point when artificial species are competing along side us in the evolutionary race.
It merely allows us to plumb ourselves deeper. It is ourselves we ought to be wary of, not some technology bogey-man.
Those who used to stagnate in front of TVs, now stagnate in front og computers; those who never read a good book in their lives, still don't; those whose lives where a whirlwind of getting somewhere and doing something without having time to stop and smell the flowers, still do it -- wether it's cellphones, those fancy horseless carriages, makes no difference; lastly, those who used to think, still do it as well.
People are so eager to blame everything around for the perceived worsening of humanity -- but the always heard that 'in the old times, things were better': we heard it before computers, we heard it before cars, through the ages the mantra has remained the same: Things suck because of these newfangled doodads, the new generation does not appreciate the finer things in life, it's all the new stuff that is at fault!
Bullshit. All the bad stuff we see around us, is what was inside us from the beginning -- we simply refuse to see it, because it would damage our flattering self-image. Technology does not make people worse -- but our own creations allow us to express our innermost desires in a wider and wider variety of ways. We are our own worst enemy, and our own best friend -- and we have no-one to blame or praise but ourselves.
--
--
Victor Danilchenko
We have had this theme echo through various phases of history.
....machines do not control us.
The answer is, predictably, a boring "Yes".
When the Industrial Revolution came upon us, there were visions of machines that ran non-stop, vomiting steam, controlling all human activity. Well, that has happened. However, the machines did not really control us in the 1920s.
Similarly, there were visions of calculating artificial brains controlling us in the 1960s. Novels were written. Philosophers pontificated about how "computers were taking over". Yes, we do have FAA software and traffic systems regulating how our airplanes land and cars go through the freeways, but
Now we have morons predicting how our majestic powerful computers are going to control everything.
Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. I personally would like to see the credentials of these people. "What is it doing to our souls?"
It's making mine emit a big yawn. Go watch some movies. Try coming up with a real article if you want readers to click those "hits" your editors want.
Yes, we all have the pressure to seem to be a visionary. But please...don't come up with crap like this to justify dramatic gee-whiz 21st century futuristic media.
L.
The article hits on some significant points, but offers nothing new, really.
/. and all over the thinking person's media, that we are becoming a 'sound byte' culture.
It's been stated, here on
Educators and clinicians brand more and more children each year with the stigma of "Attention Deficit Disorder", some with the added zinger of "Hyperactive". But what they don't realize is that our culture and lifestyle not only drive them to be this way, they are demanding of such tendencies.
A child that shifts focus frequently, can not handle a 45 minute math class, but would do well at the author's openning paragraph. Consider it.
Further, with seeing news blurr by at 8 seconds per item, with commercials every 8 minutes, how can a kid these days be expected to pay attention for longer than that? How can they not think that this is what is expected of them?
The author (Gleick by proxy) decries the loss of the symphony because radio stations only play the first (most popular) movement. Everyone knows the openning bars of Beethoven's 5th, but who can actually recognize the 3rd movement? Even NPR has to cater to the whims of it's clientelle. It's a matter of funding - you keep your client happy by playing music they like.
As the pace at which information is presented increases, the depth to which it is available decreases. Deep knowledge is what separates the expert from the amateur. Depth and breadth are mutually exclusive given finite time. The gaining of 'deep knowledge' requires a time commitment, and a discipline over our access to the flurry of information that surrounds us.
If we do not exhibit this discipline, we have only shallow knowledge, and are disposable by our culture (full of others like us). If we exercise this discipline, we risk missing out on some shallow information that is significant in the context of the fast moving info-stream. We risk becoming dated and out-of-touch.
The 'instinctive' ability to be selective about information, is quickly becoming a survival skill for the information age.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Personally, I think the way that we're going is becoming more in control of how we behave. Looking at it the way these books do is the pessimistic way of looking at it - realistically, all the "real" things that the books claim we're losing are still there, we're just able to enhance and adapt things better, and make better use of everything.
--
Everything I know in life I learnt from
Isn't it risky to mention him, purely from a career perspective? (I'm not being sarcastic here.)
After all, not many would associate him with brilliant technological insight. Even if he gets a lot of hits from his clever flamebait.
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you get used to." - Tool
Pondering while trying to look busy at the office this morning (while attempting to look busy. . . listening to a CD, checking e-mail, and browsing three different windows). . .
Not necessarily something I agree with 100%, but there are small bits that hook into my psyche in ways that are both familiar and uncomfortable.
I can speak for nobody else, but my life revolves quite literally on the pinion of my electronic information. You people reach me only as electrons the vast majority of the time. Likewise for most of my other friends; both those I grew up with and those I have yet to meet. Entertainment comes piped across the coaxial network and through the television and in through my cablemodem.
Those times when I have no access are, quite literally, withdrawal. Imagine not having the ability to speak with your friends and family, coupled with not having your car (or taxi, or public transit, etc) in order to shop or pick up a newspaper.
Am I advocating prostrating oneself to informational immersion? On many levels, yes. Is getting unplugged occasionally worthwhile? Absolutely. But I -want- to have the ability to bathe myself in information streams and cull what's salient to -me- from the flood. If that choice is made for me, aye or nay, then I get hostile. Choice is engendered by having options, and having this myriad information available at the click of a mouse is the best way of keeping that ability viable.
Rafe
V^^^^V
Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
I believe that Pink Floyd said it best when he said: We dont need no education!
I think in general the huge technology boom has been a good thing. More jobs out on the marketplace (part of the good economy we've got right now), more security (keep a cell phone for when your car breaks down, etc), more communication (how many letters did you write vs the amount of email you write now?)...
/.ers) and I'm a technophile but still, it's not all great and glorious like a lot of the media is making it out to be. There is some "bad" mixed in with the "good".
But of course it's got its bad points too. I don't read books nearly as much as I used to when I was in high school (and earlier). Kids these days spend their time chatting online rather than attempting to get real life friends, and doing real life stuff with their friends. Oh yeah how much more money in my budget do I need to spend to get "connected"... $50 for the cell phone, $50 for the cable modem/cable tv... money that would've been spent elsewhere 5 years ago.
Or how about the college students who flunk out of school because of internet addiction? Without the internet, these students probably would've still been in school. I remember freshman year (94-95) when I discovered the text irc at school. It was hard not to be tempted to skip classes because of an interesting conversation. I probably would've spent more time at the rec center or the library had I not discovered this other entertainment.
Of course I get paid to be a computer geek (like probably a majority of
Intelligent writers have been talking about this for years. One I particularly like is Steve Talbott, who publishes the NETFUTURE newsletter. He was also the article of a very well regarded book on the subject called "The Future Does Not Compute". I disagree with much of what he says (particularly his New Age nature worshiping), but it's always a good read. Especially important are the writings on computers in education.
The following essays he's written should give you a feel for the flavor of NETFUTURE:
Why Timesaving Devices Don't Save Time
and
The Principle of Technological Deceit
Gleick, on the other hand, rocks, and I enjoyed his book.
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
changing social and mental equilibrium of progress as "damage"
that needs to be fixed...
Shenk, Gleick and their fellow naysayers would have you believe that the unprecedented access to information in modern life is somehow destructive. These writers are playing on the average citizen's ignorance and consequent distrust of technology. What we're actually experiencing is a cultural shift as we pass from a society with limited access, to one with instant access, to information. Kids who grow up during this time have no difficulty assimilating the lifestyle pace of which these writers are so frightened.
The profusion of information channels only accentuates the importance of attention -- no longer are you limited to what the daily paper puts in front of you. Find out yourself whatever you want from a multitude of sources. We are already living in a partial attention-based economy. Websites and television stations compete with bloody knives for our eyes. Politics becomes a day parade of celebrities with unbeatable name recognition.
Perhaps, in longing for a simpler way of life, Shenk and Gleick etc simply do not realize that it also means a less informed, less participatory lifestyle. Bottom line, if it's too much for you to handle, turn off the machine. I have no sympathy for these writers and I suppose, for them, ignorance is truly bliss./
We want endless gardens of data, where the bits can flower, flourish and reproduce. -- Andy Mueller-Maguhn
Hey, guys. If you don't know Janelle Brown is a woman. You might even say that she's a journalist after the genre of our favorite ZDNET journalist John C. Dvorak. You may not recall their love spat about the Apple ibook but here's the URL . In short, if you agree with anything Janelle says, you've given John C. Dvorak an extra boost in confidence.
Here's the low-graphics version, if anyone prefers that.
It's called time management.
While there are so many more things pulling at you for your time, you must focus and remain commited to whatever goals you have. After a small tout of internet addiction in 94-95, I've learned to manage my time and goals. Stay focused! Fit the first time (excluding encyclopedias) we have all this info at our finertips, and lets face it, we can't know it all. Choose wants important to you. Sacrifices to be made.
But definately wear sunscreen.
What happened to the days when all we knew was tv, radio, sex, drugs and rocknroll? now the average 'net savvy' 15 year old has a startup ISP or web design company out of his bedroom where as ~20 years ago it would be the latest KISS album he was intrested in, whats the world coming to?
Return of the Luddite, anyone?
In essence, the root of the problem is that David Shenk can't find the power switch on any of his information applicances (TV, computer, etc.)
From this stems the rant "Data Smog", which leads to Technorealism.
Shenk's call for "greater government intervention" seeks to find the benevolent nanny state invading our living rooms and reviewing our content...all because David Shenk doesn't know when to quit surfing the web.
I don't know about you, but having Jesse Helms control my data access doesn't sound like progress.
Thankfully, Technorealism was exposed early and easily, and everyone who "signed on" to it is now justifiably embarrassed.
Why doesn't anyone talk about the success stories? I play the guitar- here are some instances where the net has helped me play the guitar more, for less money. -I can sell equipment I don't want on ebay for top dollar -go to Harmony-central.com and link to tabs that help to help figure out songs -Find a schematic for my old tube amp so I can fix it -Build vintage effects from schematics on the net Most of these activities have minimized my net time and maximized the time I spend playing guitar, messing around with electronics, and jamming. I am becoming a net zombie?
sorry
Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice,
transport of flickering pictures - in this century,
as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the
single aim of bringing men together.
-Antoine de Saint Exupery
there is no thing
what else could you want?
Someone else said that this territory was covered by Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock", basically discussing the question of whether we can handle "information overload". This book was written about 30 years ago, and while it's a bit dated, it still applies today. It doesn't have a doomish alarmist feel to it either.
This article wasn't too bad. Advertising saturation is a key point. The cliche goes "its not the technology, it's how you use it." I agree with that to a point but the technologies that are developed are not deveolped just for technology's sake. Lately the net has seen a lot of e-commerce growth.
The do everything but say that a lot of the problems present are due to our economic system itself. But that doesn't suprise me, you generally can't get mainstream approval by questioning capitalism our our government.
Communication technology is a great thing. It's a bad thing when it is turned into a one-way marketing and impulse buying system. I think that outcome is a ppredictable one, just look at how companies work. I say this in every post but it applies to almost everything I write about. Companies are about money and nothing else. With all the fierce competition among net startups, and established companies looking to expand, the internet seems to be expanding into one big advertisment.
It boils down to how we allow the internet to be used. If it is simply a marketing tool, we all lose. If it is more like a forum such as slashdot, we all win. Do we want dumb consumers or informed citizens?
The books reviewed here didn't look like they had much to say. I think a lot of these writers just ride the current wave of fear or euphoria to sell books.
Basically, I think that technology as we have it now, presents information - and ways of accessing it - in more and varied forms than even two years ago. Internet time is a fact, but that doesn't mean that you HAVE to be plugged in 7/24/365.
/. What's the problem?
The info is there as are the means to access it faster. That's a good thing. Example. I'm in the smoke room contemplating email clients' whimsical natures when my boss says:
I need info on sat dishes for X. He needs 'net connection. I think Hughes has some. Get me the spec sheets and prices. Oh, yeah, order another UPS."
Done in 15 minutes. While listening to music, monitoring the mail server, checking my email. Then I get to relax and read
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
A gentleman named Henry Spencer who is almost always correct on everything has his .sig say:
The good old days weren't.
I know this simplifies the "issues" a lot, but it basically stands. We, the children of the 80s and 90s are so much better off than our predecessors, and most of us don't even realize it.
If life is so bad now, why don't these neo-Luddites build cabins in the woods and live by kerosene lamps and gardenning. Oh, wait, maybe it's because central heat, telephones, computers and modern medecine are Good Things? I've lived like that before, it's actually quite pleasant, but it's hard. Getting up at 3:30 AM to stoke a stove, so that you won't freeze that night, every night, gets tiring. Hauling water from a well up a hill to a cabin is very rustic, but loses it's shine really quick.
Whatever.
J05H
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been worrying about things my entire life. Any memory I have, I've had things at the same time that worried me. Did the report I did on tigers in the second grade have any substantial effect on my life, and therefore justify the worry I gave it? Probably not.
Does that change anything? Of course not. I thought it was extremely important at the time, and it caused quite a bit of stress (rarely will you hear the term "stress" with "second grade," but there ya go). Now my worries seem much bigger--the major essay I have due on the 15th, the pain I feel sometimes in my left hand that I think is mild carpal tunnel syndrome, what the fuck I'm going to do with my CS degree when I get out of college, will I even get that CS degree--but you can't make someone understand that what they think is important really isn't when they can't grasp what it is you worry about. The same goes for 40 year olds who look at high school kids and think they have a care free life--they don't, high school is very stressful.
Even if the president has to worry about "more important" matters than I do, we can still have the same stress levels about what we worry about.
This is the exact same thing. During the "information age," we're looking back ten years, a generation, 100 years, however long, and saying to our selves "Life was so much simpler then." In many respects, yeah, but on the other hand, did it make any difference in how much and what a person had to think about? No, I really don't think it does. A farmer 100 years ago probably had just the same level of stress (think about all of the things a farmer has to worry about: will his crops fail, can he feed his family, will he have any surplus to sell, if he doesn't have any surplus where will the money come from, etc.) that we do now. We adapt.
In ten years, a generation, or 100 years, people will look back at 1999 and say "Gee, they had it so easy, they didn't have any important issues to worry about." Every generation does it. These theories are just a more articulate way of saying "Life is complicated now, it was much simpler in the past."
Thing is, there is no such thing as a simple life.
Guns don't kill people..People kill people using guns. Same can be said for technology.
This article hits on the problem - marketing and advertising based conciousness, but doesn't even remotely go into it in any depth. Television was a bad technology, the internet is better and will eventually replace it. The danger is in seeing the internet an amusement park.
The problem is capitalism.
support gun control: take guns from cops
I'm not saying that the solution is the correct one - don't get me wrong there. I don't like being told what I can view, what gadgets I need, etc. I believe that other posters are correct when they say that people are becoming more sophisticated and can deal with the new information. However, if it became absolutely necessary that something stop our brains from becoming overloaded, I think an AI would be preferable to a group of lawmakers.
-Denor
Check out Brunner's Shockwave Rider. It was written back in the 70's and the tech is a little weird but the sociology is cool and fun. G
I drank what? -- Socrates
People have problems with a high-tech life? Yeah. So? What's different from the rest of the past? People run around like headless chickens because they choose to. The author in question described the influx of information he deals with daily: it's there because (a) tech has made information transfer trivial, and (b) we _choose_ to let them interrupt us. The phone rings, or the new-mail icon appears, and I drop whatever I'm doing and address the incoming info...that's my choice, persuaded by a respond-now society. Ultimately modern life is profoundly comfortable: money isn't that hard to make in adequate amounts, food is just a drive-thru away, a warm home awaits nearby with running water, and excellent entertainment is trivially obtained with a CD purchase or video rental. A major self-induced hassle is deciding _which_ of many sources to choose from; I'm finding that it really doesn't matter and that I don't always have to agonize over what the best choice is...just pick the closest fast-food joint, download the latest MP3, rent the next video on the rack: despite the siren call of advertising, the difference between A & B is likely very small. As others have said, beware of pining for the past. I'm just 31, and grew up in a house heated by wood we cut and split, and half our food came from the back yard (the fruit of plowing, planting, weeding, pruning, watering, harvesting, and storing)...yeah it's low-tech and quaint, but how many people really want to deal with the risks of chimney fires and watching your potato crop being eaten by ravenous bugs? One SHOULD have a connection with or awareness of the "simpler life". Too many Gen-Y'ers don't even know how to cook a meal from scratch or compute sales tax without technical help. One SHOULD be able to function without electricity. Ultimately, it's personal choice. The author in question observed authors observing that young folk are supposedly more advertising-savvy: bull! Their world views are fully molded by ads, they think there is a significant and meaningful difference between Levi and Gap jeans, yet don't know how to take a bolt of cloth and make their own. What's my point? 1. Don't pine for the past; it was actually harder. 2. If life is crazy, it's because you choose to live that way. 3. Keep in touch with do-it-yourself knowledge. 4. What you percieve is not necessarily reality.
As was pointed out many times in the response to the Katz article, keeping up with the accelerating pace of technology is a choice, not a requirement for survival. I could identify with a lot of points made in the Salon article such as not being able to keep up with or wade through all of the information that is pushed at us through media. Up until recently it was driving me crazy and making me feel empty. So I gave up on trying to keep up.
I've felt much better since then!
I know that I'm not cut out for the ultra fast paced, cell phone and PDA lifestyle. I need plenty of free time to pursue my own interests and a low stress occupation. I guess I'll never be an IPO billionaire, but my sanity is more important to me than money, status or fame. That's a choice I have made and I'm happy with it.
Technology is not the problem. Seems to me that greed, keeping up with the Jones's, and doing what we think society expects of us are the REAL problems!
i gave up my car and television two years ago after seven year of :-)
m l
/ NatureTechnology.html
commuting -- it's the best thing i ever did. i don't watch TV anymore.
instead, now i actually live the life people sit about passively watching.
one thing i've noticed is that the faster people go, the less patient
they become. i walk to work now, and it takes me abotu 40 minutes. there
are peopl driving in cars by me that are moving about ten times as fast,
yet they are impatient and frusterated with 'how slow' traffic is moving,
but they're going faster than me -- i just think people in cars are
crazy now, i see them angry all the time. people flip through 500 channels
and "there's nothing on". but they spent two hours watching nothing, and
i read half a book. it all comes down to deciding whats important. i think
in the case of media, less is definitely more. one good book is worth
several days of TV watching, but people say they don't have the patience.
but they have less patience, because they don't make the effort, it's
NOT AS EASY, but its more worth it.
"If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time
serving it..." (Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Forbidden Tower)(br>
On the effect of Computers on Children in Education:
http://www.ime.usp.br/~vwsetzer/comp-in-educ.ht
On the effect of computers in relation to: doing, feeling, thinking:
http://www.gottfried.no/articles/it_eng.htm
On the Nature of Technology:
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles
Remember - it's not HOW MUCH information you have, its a matter of
having THE RIGHT information -- the rest just bogs you down. The
better question is not "how much can you get", but "HOW MUCH CAN
YOU DO WITHOUT!?"
COERSION is a rather interesting read. Not so much because of the subject matter, but because of the deconstructionist analysis of Rushkoff it provides. Namely a portrait of a man who got caught up in all the Wired buzz of the Great Generation of chaotic rough'n'ready cyberpunks and the world they were going to make, proceeded to tell advertising companies about it(for thousands of dollars an hour), and how this generation thinks, and now is acting all horrified because *gasp* THE ADVERTISERS USED THIS INFORMATION TO SELL PRODUCTS!
So, rather than fess up to the full realization that he was a completely niave chucklehead drunk on the promise of New Media and the notion that corporate america will never adjust to the cultural and technological changes that have occured this decade, he drones on with a translucent mask of objective distance about how bad and evil those advertisers and manipulators were for using the information he sold them.
They're advertisers. Adaptation is their job. You got your $7.5k/hour, shut yer whining.
Still, the Salon article itself is nicely tempered, in contrast to Katz's earlier article and any of these books. Yes, there's more data flying about, but you can control your own input. Sure, TV ads are getting fast'n'furious, but why do you need to watch TV anyway?
Another damned comic
+++ NO CARRIER
Computer use can be an addiction just like any other and can have the same deadening effect on many aspects of your character as can too much rock and roll or too much drugs.
Your formative years will have a huge effect on how you are able to enjoy life years later, take it from an old guy. It's important when you are young to live and experience life as naturally and in as many dimentions as possible.
All these complaints about technology overcoming some mythical golden age are merely signs that have been repeated throughout the last 100 years. Think about it, technology is employed to control decision making processes. By that I mean it is used to facilitate the gathering and dissemination of information (Which is required for decisions to be made) and production. The techniques had their roots in the Industrial Revolution with the American System of manufacture (Taylorism), continuous processign of materials, efficient plant design, cost control, time studies, scientific management etc. These were all systems that look to use information in order to control distribution, consumption and production.
The continued evolution of mass communications, combined with increases in production and distribution, have reached the point where there is very little time required for significant changes in any one of these fields to have a large impact in the other two. So what we are seeing today and some are lamenting, is merely a continuation of things that have happened since the Industrial Revolution. The fact that some feel they have lost control is due in part to the fact that there is no one person making decisions. It is a large non-personal entity that gathers all information available, processes it and then makes a decision based on the available information.
Computers merely make the process faster than humans can. Even today the stock market has to slow down through artifical limits simply becuase the computers process the information faster than humans, which can cause wildly erratic changes in the economy. And yet, people try to compete hoping to get a competitive advantage over somebody else in order to benefit through some real or imagined gain.
And this isn't something that is new either. Many people realized this and put their own view on it. Look at Babbage! The rise of the information class and information workers was seen in 1958, McLuhan (patron saint of the pre-Conde-Nast Wired) saw a global village based on mass media in 1964. Corporate control from Galbraith in the 60s, Brzezinski's technetronic era (1970?) Toffler etc etc.
Its in human nature to control. Its just that right now the means to control production, distribution and consumption of materials is faster and more interdependent than ever. It also depends on a centralized means of gathering information. In 1984 the top 5 information-processing equipment manufacturers were IBM, Digital Equipment, Burroughs, Control Data and NCR. Guess who were the 5 largest in 1928? Remington Rand, National Cash Register (NCR), Burroughs, IBM, and Underwod Elliot Fisher.
Its hard to win against human nature.
We're all being slowly, but surely, convenienced out of existence.
The big companies can afford to (mass) produce a conveniently available alternative. They can't do the same for specialized products, because then they incur the same costs as the small business. It is, as you suggest, a matter of profit - simple economics. And as long as the majority of us chooses to save a buck, rather than be patrons of our local small business, the trend will continue.
Ultimately, the skills needed to do anything will be held only by the big companies. (I know, I'm naysaying, but only to make the point)
I'm originally from Poland. There, families typically make a day-trip out of going to an area forest to pick edible mushrooms. There's a whole variety out there that is usable as garnish, flavoring, condiments...
In the US, the only mushroom that people know is the store bought little round one - and the very gourmet Shittake and Portabella. And for all these are worth, Americans don't know a Shittake from a Portabella from Nightshade on sight. It's only the printed label that makes the distinction. (Though, to their credit, a small segment of the population knows enough to spot the psychoactive variety that the Europeans see as poisonous.)
This is not a shot at Americans. It is simply more convenient to not have a knowledge of mushrooms. It's not a needed skill. But what about other skills. Brewing your own beer? Darning your own socks? In a society of convenience, where mega-corporations provide cheap, disposable goods, it is easy to simply buy into the convenience.
It's easy to abdicate power, but it's damn hard to get it back later. This holds for consumerism, security and human rights, everything.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.