How are new technologies changing us?

Instead of simply asking "Why write?" (i.e., "In this bewildering, distracted, digitized Brave New World we inhabit, why bothering going to the effort of writing for publication in the old-fashioned way?) lately I've been pondering a more fundamental question: How are the new technologies changing us?

This question is posed in The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Watch Ourselves and Our Neighbors by Hal Niedzviecki. The author notes that when television first appeared, it was thought that it would have certain beneficial effects--education and culture for the masses, for example. Twenty or thirty years down the road we realized television instead was having other, not so great, effects such as increased obesity and violence in children. Television was changing us in unexpected ways.

In light of that, says Niedzviecki, we need today to be asking ourselves what effect all the new, digital technologies are having on us. His book explores just one change: the increased willingness, even desire, people today have to expose themselves (sometimes literally) to others. The book also explores the increased desire masses of people today have to "peep" into the lives of others. Peepers and those who expose themselves, says the author, feed off each other. Being a "Peeping Tom" no longer is seen as reprehensible. We have changed.

Another alteration is cited in the 2008 Atlantic article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicolas Carr. Carr talks about ways his own powers of concentration when reading have slipped and he blames the Internet. Our brains are being rewired, he believes. Citing anecdotes, experts, and a study of online research habits (few people pause to read whole articles) Carr explains why Google indeed may be making us stupid. On the other hand, he adds, we don't really know quite where it all is taking us, so perhaps it's not all bad. Time will tell.

The article caused me to ponder ways I might have changed from using the Internet. Yes, I believe my own ability to concentrate while reading has slipped. Hmmm...

A really good "long form" article about Facebook

I came across a website that awards the ten best "long form" (a term I don't recall hearing when I went to college) articles to appear each year. In the process, I discovered this fantastic article with the title "Generation Why." It's all about The Social Network, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and a book I've just got to read titled You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jason Lanier.

Author of the article, Zadie Smith, teaches English at Harvard and actually was around when some events portrayed in the film occurred. Although just nine years older than Zuckerberg, Smith says he feels part of a different generation. In a nutshell, the newer generation, People 2.0 as he calls them, tend to live virtually, while his and earlier generations, People 1.0, lived and related, well, the way people did before Facebook.

To pique your interest further, I leave this final sentence from the article: "The Social Network is not a cruel portrait of any particular real-world person called 'Mark Zuckerberg.' It’s a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore."