When the internet was just beginning to show up on the collective radar (ca 1997, let's say), most people saw it as an isolating, anti-social influence. You could order a pizza over the internet without ever speaking to another human being! (Except the driver, but that was a minor detail.) The internet was obviously the thin end of a wedge. Today AOL says "you've got mail," tomorrow we're all living in one-person bunkers underground, getting all the necessities of life from Amazon's delivery robots.
In 2001, I read a rebuttal by a former IT consultant in a contrarian magazine. People had the same worries about the telephone, she explained. But the urge to connect with other human beings had survived somehow, eking out a meager existence on the fringes of society. No amount of advanced technology would ever be able to kill it off completely.
If our social instincts can survive suburbs and the telephone, we'll probably find an excuse not to drift off into the ether.
In 2001, I read a rebuttal by a former IT consultant in a contrarian magazine. People had the same worries about the telephone, she explained. But the urge to connect with other human beings had survived somehow, eking out a meager existence on the fringes of society. No amount of advanced technology would ever be able to kill it off completely.
If our social instincts can survive suburbs and the telephone, we'll probably find an excuse not to drift off into the ether.