The Internet: Reflections on Our Present Discontents
In NetFuture, Stephen L. Talbott explores the impact of our thinking about the Internet, or perhaps our lack of the kind of thinking that puts it into the right perspective relative to our communal, social context. He argues that the supposed efficiency of the Internet should not be seen as a goal in itself, apart from our values, concluding that the Internet can be the expression of a healthy society – or society can become an unhealthy expression of the Internet. [Link] Discuss
“…we will have so easily and casually invited young people around the world into this new activity — and no actual community will have done anything at all of the sort that was once required to create a place, the conditions, the cultural surroundings, the human context within which the activity occurs. The young people will have been lifted out of their communities and into this new recreation, not because some sort of rooted and coherent evolution of the communities is taking place, but simply because a worldless world is now at our fingertips and someone sitting alone in front of a screen came up with a workable combination of digital bits. The levity of it all — the ease and thoughtlessness and disconnection and vapidity and grave cultural consequence — these are what worry me. We have gotten ourselves into a situation where a teenager, with no real sense for what he is doing, can to one degree or another reprogram every community in our society.”