Growing Up in a World of Information Overload

As I was working in my freelance editor/writer job today for a client I came across this interesting video that was shown at Sony's annual shareholder's meeting last year. I was struck not only by the serendipity of how the content of this video puts some amazing context to my previous post about video addiction—the rate of increase of technology in our lives is astoundingly presented in this video—but also about the meaning of technology in our adult lives. The video ends with the question, "So what does it all mean?"

To me, it means that we need to increase our human abilities to discern truth from fiction, marketing hype and political doubletalk from meaningful conversation, and to determine how all people can best use technology instead of a few people using technology to manage everyone else. After viewing this, what does it all mean to you?

Comments

[Mahra]

I like what you said this means to you. What does it mean to me? After watching the video, I am thinking about the value of being more "unplugged". I closed my facebook account recently because of this. I think there is value in technology. There is value in texting, twitter, facebook, myspace but my concern is that humans are increasingly trying to fill an emotional void with little bits of information instead of real human connections. I think many people are very afraid to be vulnerable enough to make and sustain the real connections that would fill that void. So in that way, it becomes an addiction. Someone feels lonely, they hop on facebook. They feel better for a bit, then they needed another "fix", but the thing they are trying to fix is the need for connectedness. Little bits of connecting via technologically won't fill our need for connectedness in any sustainable way. This concerns me for the human race. I think many of our problems can only be solved by people realizing we need each other in real ways, not just for brief moments through a screen. Thanks for asking.