I am not disagreeing with you, but I do have some questions and comments. Stephen Snow wrote: > Don't think that I confuse the two; I don't. For many people, electronic > connections are very important aspects of their lives in positive ways and, > because of that, they are healing. I'd like to think that you are right, but more accurately I *feel* that you are right. Whether this feeling is correct or not would require empirical data to substantiate it, and that never seems to come to the fore. Realistically speaking, 20% of the humans held to this planet by gravity are online. Factor in mobile phones and that percentage can go up very high - but here's the issue: How do we *know* that? In the circles we operate in - we who participate in discussion lists, social networks, et al - how do we know that people we do not know see benefit in these? And how do we substantiate the value of electronic connections?
Kurt Vonnegut wrote this: "...Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different..." (Man Without a Country, Chapter 6, last paragraph) I'm somewhere between Vonnegut and what 'many' people in electronic communities claim. One of the issues I find interesting is the telecenter, which is lauded as being one of the great things that works toward the digital divide decreasing - and yet, the success of telecenters is not necessarily in the electronic communities but the communities - the human communities - that get together in the telecenters and help each other out. Rarely do you hear of telecenters being an integral aspect of social networking sites, etc - and that is because their real asset is bring people together in a physical manner while using technology. In essence, telecenters are an interesting success and their failure comes when internet access at residences has a cost decrease which permits people to stay at home. Yet is there a benefit to staying home and working on one's computer, away from other human beings? Is it... better? Or does it isolate us? Where is the balance? How much is good, how much is bad? How do we know? We don't really. 'Many' people believe that we 'know', but we really don't. Everyone is different. The people around us tend to support what we believe because... those are the people we surround ourselves with. So, I understand what you mean and I agree with it. But I cannot substantiate my agreement, and that is troubling. Maybe we're wrong. I know we're all really smart and everything, but we could be wrong. When a statement ends in 'because I said so', the 'I' has lost. > I think it is oversimplifying to call it > merely a crutch. The truth is *anything* can be considered a crutch and > anything improperly used can create further complications. Anything is a crutch. I agree. But we were discussing technology and human health, not being human. :-) > A doctor friend > of mine told me just last evening of a human error she made that cost a > person her life; has she put that woman on an ultrasound machine, she very > well might not be dying of cancer right now. I don't think of the world in > such starkly dualistic terms, generally, Taran -- heaven/hell, right/wrong. > Certainly there are moral absolutes (we all have our favorites) and the > blind affection for technology is no exception, but I tend to think we live > in the world of 'gray,' mostly, technology included. > We agree. But even in agreeing, I question why we agree and I question my own thoughts on this as I would like to believe that recent advances in communication technology can have a positive impact on humanity as a whole - but I have no data to support it and even have data to say that it isn't so. My question is - and this will be unpopular for many, but I think it is important - how can we justify ourselves other than saying we 'feel' we are doing the right thing? Where is the data that supports our position? The faith in the idea that technology can help in any context, including human health, is good and I think it is important as being a core. But I also believe that we need to really do a bit of technocultural introspection and see what it is we are actually trying to achieve and how we are trying to achieve it. My best offer for a metric is one I bring up from time to time - counting smiles - but that is impractical. Again, I might sound pessimistic but I am not trying to be. I want to know - *know* - how we are impacting, who we are impacting, and whether the positives and negatives for individuals balance or not. I do not know, and 'many' people say that they do know but they then refer to 'many' other people... we have to have harder data than that somewhere. We should. Medicine is still run on statistics, though the human genome project should have thrown at least part of that out the window by now. The human genome project certainly can and has helped with health, and in that way has allowed technology to help medicine... but has it reached it's potential? I would like to think we can do better. I just cannot tell you with any accuracy or margin of error whether we are actually doing anything of value. We need more data. At least I do. -- Taran Rampersad Presently in: San Fernando, Trinidad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.knowprose.com http://www.your2ndplace.com Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/knowprose/ "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo "The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine." - Nikola Tesla _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
