If I would feel determinated by my WOW guild or by my twitter community or my google reader, if I won’t be able to decide to leave WOW or twitter alone for hours and days in order to spend and enjoy lots of time offline whith my children, my colleages, my friends, I would have a problem. But it won’t be a problem of media, it would rather be a problem of missing skills of judgement and decision making. In other words: It would be a lack of ability to make my personal sense.

We had this problem in the historical societies before the Information Age as well, but it didn’t become as clear and as severe as it is today. In previous times, the society has defined and given the sense by providing clear societal meanings. Now, since there is no homogenous sense (or meaning) to be given at all, every single individual has to define it by itself (of course in his/her cultural historical contexts and by negotiation with his/her social surroundings).

The key competencies for the living and even mor for the next generations are the cometencies of judgement and of defining the personal sense in every situation and in any subject matter which is meaningful for the individual.

(Please excuse my bad English).

For example…

The central air conditioner brought people inside during hot summer nights instead of spending time in the streets with their neighbors.

Developers who have built entire cities and neighborhoods without sidewalks, making it difficult, in in some cases unsafe, for neighborhood walks. It is on these walks that we often see people, say hello, and have some friendly conversation.

Cars – cars have extended our range of travel in our areas of residence…we spend more time in our cars than we ever have, which detracts from time spent building community.

Books – it is possible that the tradition of oral and community storytelling was impacted quite negatively by the mass production of books via printing press technology.

To say that digital inter-networking is a key reason for the break down of community is absurd.

Does Dr. Bugeja think that we’re going to go backwards with the trend towards greater technological communication? Are people going to stop getting instant access to the news via on-line sources and start buying papers from the newspaper machines again? Am I going to completely stop my 8th grade daughter from sending text messages to her friends instead of calling them or inviting them over?

We need to embrace the technology and figure out how to keep the personal contacts important…however, a teacher at Omaha Westside High School, during a Mac Learning Institute a couple of years ago (“selling” their one-to-one initiative) actually said he was against putting a computer in all the students (about 2100 of them) hands because he thought that it would reduce the communication between student and teachers…and just the opposite has happened…there is more communication, even face-to-face, than ever before because the shy kids who don’t want to ask a question in class in front of their peers are now doing that via email or chat and finding that they do have something to say and the teachers are making them feel important by validating their question or comment in a safe and secure way. This has led to greater confidence by the students to talk to the teacher in person and so communication has improved (one teacher’s example but it seemed pretty powerful and likely to be true for more).

Keep pushing the envelope Scott…we all need to be challenged to keep moving forward in the digital age!

Thanks!

The funny thing is most of what he said was true, about blurring the lines and whatnot. It is just how you perceive that blurring. He clearly has a default negative view (and I am sure many Iowa residents do too, which is why he got more airtime). Of course, after watching those anchors play their little texting game at the end of that segment, it is hard to see how most viewers wouldn’t have a default negative view.

Really liked your backdrop by the way – that was a good room to shoot in.