Photo Credit: Dennis Dunleavy
Like all human endeavors, technology can be like a double-edged sword. There are wonderful things about technology — assuming it is used to improve our lives, help us communicate better, and make our day to day world easier. On the back side of all the positives, however, there is the feeling that in our rush to accept all the changes technology offers we are also missing something.
I think with all the advantages of text and instant messaging, blogging, podcasting, and digital camera phones, society seems to find itself defaulting to the convenience of immediacy over intimacy. Human beings have certain fundamental needs and face-to-face interaction still remains high up on my list of characteristics.
Our fascination with the computer-mediated world we’ve created begins at the earliest of ages through the instant gratification that clicking a keyboard or moving a mouse brings.
More often now, children in wired environments are moving their media consumption from the television to the Internet. Young people develop a sophistication and acumen with the technology that older generations struggle to understand.
Technological literacy in a digitally mediated universe is imperative, but we must also be careful not to jetison some of our antecedent principles and values in the process. What comes to mind, first and foremost, is the notion of civility in how we communicate with one another. Spam — it’s not just another four-letter-word — it’s the idea that we can avoid confronting others in honest and open ways through passive aggressive behaviors.
Like road rage, spam and flame mail is about venting without thinking. This is what technology enables us to do — spew without considering the consequences of our actions. Just ask disgraced politician Mark Foley, R-Fla., about his indulgences with instant messaging and teenage pages in the White House. The point is that immediacy does not automatically tranlate to intimacy. Despite the attraction of instant and auto everything in our lives today we must still practice the discipline of reflection and patience.
Brendan Koerner (2001) in “Getting the news: How technology is revolutionizing the media,” suggests, “….Consumers are not automatons who simply want to be showered with raw data. The media enviornment may be changing at breakneck speed, but some aspects of human nature will be slow to change” (p.9).