Modern Technology/Progress... is it inevitable?

[lovesjoyajm]

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?

[Mish]

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?

I don't think your questions are mutually exclusive lj. The short answer is... anything is possible.

I did a paper on evolution of technology for uni last year. The age we live in 'The information age' is actually a very exciting time period. Everything is at the tip of our fingertips. For the first time in history anyone can become anyone or learn almost anything just by reading up on it. These many vast, relatively cheap and easily obtainable resources have never been available to us before.

[Lipp]

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?

Well, since speed and accessibility of information is exploding when it comes to media and knowledge it's not really surprising that social networking follows the same pattern, it's merely the shape of what it would be like that could be different, just as we could've had electricity fuelling the industrial revolution instead of fuel had it only been delayed.

Does that mean that we have accept it? Not really. There's a difference between halting progress and having a preference for a different type of progress. I don't favour facebook either and limit social contact online very much since I find it all to be so impersonal if it's not by voice or in person.

[doppelgaenger]

Haha, yes. In other words, I know why my grandpa's always bitching about everything.

[Gribble]

I don't get Facebook or Twitter. I had a Facebook account. For months it sat neglected, collecting the occasional "gift" from people I hadn't spoken to since high school. I'd like to believe that crap's just a fad. It's meaningless and empty. I don't see how it relates to news. I don't see what it provides society other than a new avenue for pedophiles to prey on kids. It's just a place to blare your awful music and post your tacky pictures while stoking your fragile ego with a friends list in the triple digits.

It's all rather pathetic. Thanks, but I'll go out if I want to socialize. That leads me to something else. Where's the socialization in these so called social networks? Posting idiotic messages on someone's wall seriously passes for social interaction today? Please. I will never understand that shit.

[Indignant]

i heard on the radio that too much time and socializing on internet, instead of in person, causes dementia.

[doppelgaenger]

Then again I rip photos off facebook and use them as references when I am drawing, lol. So I have quite a few drawings of stupid drunk college people.

[doppelgaenger]

i heard on the radio that too much time and socializing on internet, instead of in person, causes dementia.

Isn't it funny?

The radio used to be the modern day internet, actually. and after that, the TV. so it's just funny the way you put it.

[DoesntMatter]

Genotypically people are getting stupider, but being recorded as smarter based on measurements which are simply owing to their nourishing environments

[lovesjoyajm]

How was the radio the modern day internet?

You can't interact with a radio.

Just read about how the Pope gave his "blessing" to facebook, but said to be cautious of excluding the marginalized and replacing real human contact with digital friendship.

[doppelgaenger]

You don't know about the golden age of radio? You can indeed interact with radio. Don't you know about citizen's band? Ham radio? None of that rings a bell? A lot of technology wouldn't exist without the radio. In fact, the radio used to be the 'internet'. Yes, people used to have ham radios in their car and everything.

Anyway, **** the pope.

If you want to be realistic, you have to nip the problem in the bud. Internet is not replacing real human contact with digital friendship. Overpopulation is. Just think about it for a second. In smaller communities, people are much friendlier, then say, New York City. No shit, right? People in a small town the size of 2500 are just ****ing nosy. Take it from someone who has lived in both. People in NYC don't give a damn about anything but their own personal business and affairs. So people resort to going to clubs and bars, and meeting people online, and anywhere that people might go to meet other people. In smaller towns, there is no such thing as a club. Nobody there registers for online dating, and there's no sense in using something like facebook when you know everyone... (but young people have it anyway, to post pictures of each other and waste time) and bars, they just become places to hang out.

Overpopulation causes a lot of problems. Eventually there will be a need for population control. Look what happened to China. But nobody's going to do a damn thing until problems become rampant. Not a damn thing will be done about it until you can't go anywhere without making an appointment by email, all meat and vegetables are grown in farm factory warehouses, and everybody has aids and does drugs.

[Only-virgins]

We need to get off this stupid rock.

[doppelgaenger]

I'd like to go to Mars.