Postman: some problems

Years from now, it will be noticed that the massive collection and speed-of-light retrieval of data have been of great value to large-scale organizations but have solved very little of importance to most people and have created at least as many problems for them as they may have solved…

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

40 years from then to be exact. The ability those prime, blue trucks and their homey warehouses have to receive orders at a click, cue up an item, and rush it across downtowns and past suburbs within 24-hours is a marvel. An organization’s national town hall coordinating thousands of employees to meet in one virtual room and witness a presentation at almost no cost compared to the travel it once would have taken is incredible.

But what is all this efficiency and connectivity really serving?
Did we lose the trees somewhere in the forest of data accumulation & the hyper-active hive mind of communication?
In the midst of breakdowns & burnout, have we discovered the bankruptcy & dangers of our mode of online existence?

Postman nailed it in the 80’s as computers incorporated and telephones cemented their place in business operations. All the while, individual citizens (only then starting to become consumers) were invited into the circus to “enjoy the bounties of innovation.” The catch wasn’t revealed until much later.

Every technology is a bargain, but not a bargain in the sense of a deal. Tech persuades us to not examine its effects closely and to take on its stipulations wholesale. Digital products are designed with commercial ends in mind, ad captandum vulgus, and operate in a system that doesn’t reward virtue but virality.

This is the trap into which we fell. Seeing the supposed benefits in the corporate world, those at the start of the technological era took on the same inventions, processes, and paradigms into their personal lives. Technology came home with us from the office. Efficiency invaded personal lives. The doctrine of more, faster, better pervades our religion.

Does it help or hurt to receive any item in the world within one day? Does it aid or addle the mind to be “connected” to anyone and everyone ever hour of the day by the “speed-of-light retrieval of data” if needed?

Let’s just say it’s been “noticed” that these technologies we call essential “have created at least as many problems for (us) as they may have solved…”