Why the pessimism?
Should we be really so pessimistic about technology, especially the emerging new media technologies? Communication is a social construct, born out of the need to be able to survive. We, the Homo sapiens, have persisted and survived, and progressed over the past 100,000 years, mainly because we have developed the skill of communicating with each other. What has really changed, is the way we have started communicating. If we overlap timelines of evolution of the present human race and that of evolution of media, media has been around for a miniscule fraction of the time. The problem is that we have simply not been able to really understand this new form of communication. We don't know how to deal with it. We are mesmerized by the moving images, captivated by them, and are unable to distinguish fact from fiction. We develop parasocial relationships with the fictional characters on television. We are addicted to the shows, to the games we play on our play stations, and to the fascin