Life is moving faster than ever before in human history because of the pace of technological change. While this speed of change has benefits, it also has downsides.
I think the speed of digital communication is having three powerful effects on society:
- Pop culture is everywhere. And pop culture is driven by advertising, and the values of advertisers dominate just about all content that is produced, advertisements or not. So the explosion of pop culture through technology means the consumer culture is becoming even more powerful.
- People’s attention spans are shrinking. The immediacy of digital communication is conditioning people to have shorter attention spans.
- Electronic entertainment and communication. Whether you want to watch TV or play video games, it’s easy to find a source of electronic entertainment to indulge in. So easy, that people are spending more time with machines rather than with people. People are bonding more with television characters than other humans. Electronic communication is also easy. People are communicating more through IM, email and discussion boards. As a result, people are having less in-person interaction. Once again, we are bonding less with each other.
So, the trend that is spiraling faster is that people want a lot of consumer products, want them now, and have increasingly more human “intimacy” with these products than they do with each other. I think it is easy to see why increased technology increases dehumanization.
Agree? Disagree? Yeah, but. Let me know.
3 comments:
I am always joking that soon we'll all just be a bunch of talking heads sitting in front of computers.
As I've said before, I miss the human element of attending a class.
Lane~You are right on! I have had this conversation about this digital age to my friends with their ipods and Blackberries and cellphones...I think there is so much miscommunication and not only that, but it is happening at such a high rate of speed that we are losing our interpersonal skills not to mention ability to memorize information like phone numbers that are stored in cyberbrains for us. It is indeed a brave new world. I think miscommunication via email is rampant. There are no nuances to email except the occasional smiley face and how much weight does that really carry? Anyway, really enjoyed reading your first post. Cheers! Amy P.S. I find it rather ironic that I'm posting digitally about the failures of digital communication. Who says irony is dead, eh? :o)
I totally agree, especially with #2. The young-uns of today are the "instant gratification" generation.
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