‘Wonders’ of technology

JAN 10, 2020

The World Wide Web puts the vast stores of human understanding at our fingertips, anytime, and almost anyplace. I’m old enough to remember when a difficult question meant a trip to a university library and, then, a two to four week wait for an answer via “snail mail.” Given the time and effort required, you’d think pretty carefully about what you really wanted to find out before you formed a question.

These days, the ubiquitous tendency to “google” virtually any momentary thought may appear, on the surface, to have eliminated the need for that visit to the library or the need to consult someone with actual expertise or life experience.

So-called “smartphones,” ironically seldom actually used as telephones, provide the addicted with a powerful self-delusion of connectedness, involvement, and community while actually giving rise to self-affirming regional, racial, tribal, and generational bubbles. We clump together and marinate ourselves in the ideas of people who think and talk just like we do. […]

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