Now with regard to this post…

While I largely agree with your belief that technology is generally a force for good in the world, particularly with regard to social change, I also feel that those who are concerned with technology’s power to “dumb-down” public discourse are not completely off the mark. In the West, there are numerous debates surrounding what’s called the “information overload,” which roughly means that through mass media technologies like television and the Internet we are suffering from a glut of information, rendering impossible the ability to make distinctions between truths and falsities. This glut, the argument goes, turns public discourse into an endless cycle of narrative/counter-narrative with no real headway being made with regard to any issue. Though the argument is compelling it is not without faults of its own, particularly its tendency to portray the ordinary consumer as ignorant and unable to make informed decisions based on available knowledge.

Another important thing to remember about technology is that, on top of its expressed utility, it always serves an economic purpose. Technologies like the Internet, which in theory are democratically-based, have allowed for capital (and thus on some levels, power) to accumulate into relatively few corporate hands, which, unsurprisingly, occurs with the introduction of any new, lucrative technology. These corporations hold the ever-increasing power to dictate what is expressed, disseminated, produced, etc. on their respective Internet turfs. The fear is that concerns for profit and stock portfolios will override values of free-speech and individual expression. While blogging and other citizen-minded activities serve as an oppositional narrative to this centralization of technological/economic capital, these still pale in comparison to the power that corporations (most often Western-based) continue to exert in the sphere of information technology.

In the end I feel that it is the responsibility of the everyday denizen of the digital world to act as a watchdog to ensure that the awesome power of technology is not being used for malevolent purposes. The Internet has the potential be a dynamic staging ground for many a politically-minded social movement, but only if we keep the channels of communication open and free. History has repeatedly shown that technology has ability to be both a liberating force and a restrictive power.

Every time I attempt to hold a discussion with my family, it almost always ends with a lecture on the Internet’s corruptive power (and sometimes with a note on the side that it was created by the West specifically for the purpose of corrupting the innocent Muslim mind!). The underlying message is: I cannot believe you possess the faculty of independent thought.

Bringing an end to conformist thinking, and allowing ‘rebels’ to see that they’re not alone is definitely on the top of my list of “why technology matters”.