Modern Technology/Progress... is it inevitable?
I was talking to someone the other day about things like Facebook and Twitter (which I had never heard of.) I took myself off Facebook about 3 or 4 months ago because I thought it was a waste of time and also I just hate the way it gives you the illusion of "knowing" people based on their profiles, and how it makes you (or at least me) feel compelled to keep in touch with people I would otherwise have lost touch with years ago.
This guy's view, on the other hand, was that things like Twitter and Facebook are changing the face of news and knowledge. Not necessarily that this is a good thing, but that this is simply how it is... with the implication that refusing to be part of it is just denying reality and halting progress.
So I'm wondering: do you think the "digital age" of knowing everything about everyone, instantly, is/was/has been an inevitable consequence of the advancement of technology and knowledge? Or would it have been possible for "modernity" to take a different route so that while still having a thoroughly "modern" society, these bizarre, Stalkernet phenomena wouldn't have become the norm?