Take bullying among the those of school age. Now we have 'cyber bullying' and the tragic phenomenon of resulting suicides among those youngster who are bullied relentlessly.
As Jonathan Friedland points out, the significant difference these technological days is that the bullier, the name caller is no longer restricted. As a Catholic child in the slums of Dublin I would call out to another pupil
'Proty Proty on the wall...who is the greatest of them all." And I did so because everybody did so. If you were a Catholic and they were a 'Protestant. But I would stop the name calling when he got to his house. In the technological age I can follow him into his house.
The old response, that bullying is timeless, misses two key differences: as has been argued the pre-digital tormentor rarely followed his victim into the home, as he can now, and always had to witness the consequences of his actions in the flesh, which for some probably acted as a brake. In the virtual age, both those constraints have gone.
The American intellectual Leon Wieseltier recently told of his fears for reading. "Reading is a cognitive, mental, emotional action, and today it is under pressure from all this speed of the internet and the whole digital world." What's more, he believes technology is shifting our way of seeing the world, that we have become "happily, even giddily, governed by the values of utility, speed, efficiency and convenience", so that we now "ask of things not if they are true or false, or good or evil, but how they work".
Perhaps there was similar angst at the birth of the printing press. But this change is reaching into every corner of our humanness. Once it looked like hype, but now those pioneers seem right: the internet really has changed the world completely – and us along with it.
The ease and availability of a dizzying range of pornography, easily accessed by the very young, represents more than a change of platform. Images that are now commonplace were once visible only to those who were determined to seek them out, knew where to go and were not ashamed to reveal their appetite for them. Now they can be reached at a click, without fear of disclosure or embarrassment.
And so it goes on...watch out for the next ap' and see the queues snake along the sidewalk.
Who was it who said it that humans have a lemming like quality.
There is no shame. And that may well be altering, if not distorting, the sexuality of the next generation
As Jonathan Friedland points out, the significant difference these technological days is that the bullier, the name caller is no longer restricted. As a Catholic child in the slums of Dublin I would call out to another pupil
'Proty Proty on the wall...who is the greatest of them all." And I did so because everybody did so. If you were a Catholic and they were a 'Protestant. But I would stop the name calling when he got to his house. In the technological age I can follow him into his house.
The old response, that bullying is timeless, misses two key differences: as has been argued the pre-digital tormentor rarely followed his victim into the home, as he can now, and always had to witness the consequences of his actions in the flesh, which for some probably acted as a brake. In the virtual age, both those constraints have gone.
The American intellectual Leon Wieseltier recently told of his fears for reading. "Reading is a cognitive, mental, emotional action, and today it is under pressure from all this speed of the internet and the whole digital world." What's more, he believes technology is shifting our way of seeing the world, that we have become "happily, even giddily, governed by the values of utility, speed, efficiency and convenience", so that we now "ask of things not if they are true or false, or good or evil, but how they work".
Perhaps there was similar angst at the birth of the printing press. But this change is reaching into every corner of our humanness. Once it looked like hype, but now those pioneers seem right: the internet really has changed the world completely – and us along with it.
The ease and availability of a dizzying range of pornography, easily accessed by the very young, represents more than a change of platform. Images that are now commonplace were once visible only to those who were determined to seek them out, knew where to go and were not ashamed to reveal their appetite for them. Now they can be reached at a click, without fear of disclosure or embarrassment.
And so it goes on...watch out for the next ap' and see the queues snake along the sidewalk.
Who was it who said it that humans have a lemming like quality.
There is no shame. And that may well be altering, if not distorting, the sexuality of the next generation
No comments:
Post a Comment