With the rapid development of technologies, we feel like we are struggling to catch up and that everything is changing. We complain about the future generations growing up differently than us and how bad that could be. It’s easy to blame it on the new things because we don’t want to take responsibility. But if we look back, this generation is not the first one to think this.
Tom Standage is a journalist and author from England that wrote a book called “Writing on the wall: Social media, the first 2.000 years” in which he talks about the history of media through the lens of the telegraph, bringing up to conversation that social media is not exactly new. He goes back in time and shows all similarities between human’s past communication ways and social media today. What comes to conclusion is that the way humans communicate may be slightly changed by technology but the roots are still the same. We have the same instincts and the same drive when it comes to networking and showing off knowledge or possessions.
For example, something “going viral” seems to be a very recent term that can only happen with the globalization of internet. We’ve seen videos of cats, cute kids, emotional speeches and many more videos and photos that have had their 15 minutes of fame. But what if going viral wasn’t strictly related to these new technologies? It could be said that Martin Luther King’s 95 theses was the first viral phenomenon ever and he did it without the internet. Now achieving that is easier and we should take advantage of it, also taking into account how important it is to protect it’s freedom and worldwide access.
For the hopeless pessimists about the future
In his book, Tom Standage also explains how back in the 17th century in England, it was popular to gather in Coffee Houses to chat and find out about the news. It was a place where everyone was admitted and you couldn’t refuse to talk to anyone. Young people spent most their time there socializing and exchanging ideas, and that was seen as a bad thing by elders. Professors would complain those meetings in Coffee Houses were going to be the end of the British Empire, but quite the opposite happened. Those gatherings gave them the opportunity to meet new people and exchange opinions and creative ideas.
If we pay attention, this is exactly what is happening nowadays. People “wasting” their time chatting in Coffee Houses is the equivalent of people on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr (and so on) today. 
People today have the same type of thoughts about younger generations, how we are a lost cause because of the internet and the immediacy of things. Why can’t we see the internet and social media as a place to learn more about each other? As long as it is not abused,we could be facing the most open and creative generations ever, why try to stop them? We should learn from history and keep going forward instead of constantly looking at the possible bad side of things.
References
- Triangulation 126 Podcast hosted by Tom Standage – Oct 30th 2013 – https://twit.tv/shows/triangulation/episodes/126
- How Luther went viral – The economist – December 17th 2011 – http://www.economist.com/node/21541719
- “Net effects: The past, present and future impact in our networks” by Tom Wheeler – https://archive.org/details/NETEFFECTSThePastPresentAndFutureImpactOfOurNetworks
Flor Tedesco 