Technological growth is exponential. Understanding and harnessing this devices has a curve that is a bit milder. I often still hear people complaining about the ill effects of social networking and the unreliable nature of Wikipedia. When are we going to move past these shallow forms of thought bring the blame back to the root, which is ourselves.
I’m not suggesting that such tools are infallible, but instead I am proposing that we should witness the differences in later generations as a means to harness our desires and build around them. Things like educational video games are a step in the right direction but miss the mark. There isn’t much evidence in support of using these tools to teach toddlers are good at what they set out to do. I personally had a one of those Leap Frog toys that taught multiplication. It lacked in the game aspect and didn’t provide any features that would make it better than practicing with pen and paper. We need to look toward Facebook to understand what is attractive to us so that these failed attempts of bettering society become intuitive.
Facebook has it’s drawbacks though doesn’t it? It has become a popular idea that social networking has pulled us apart more than anything by creating a false sense of closeness. We are constantly in contact with hundreds of people so feel less inclined to mingle more often in real life. This may be true, but at the same time we must ask why this form of communication is more attractive. Will continued use eventually bring us to be an overall more agoraphobic society? Is this in fact progress? I recall the famous sci-fi novel “The Naked Sun” where the most technologically advanced human colony was also the most afraid of human contact. Maybe our current understanding of socializing is too immature to weigh in on the debate.