Rachel Crowl

Listening to Rachel Crowl talk about the history of the internet and how it has developed from a publishing medium to an incredibly interconnected and diverse social networking tool had a somewhat eye opening effect on me.  It's too easy for me to become cynical about the uncontrollable expansion of technology and communications in the past few decades, but it's also true that the way in which technology opens up pathways to share ideas, art, news, and other things that can be important to distribute among the populous.

It is crazy to think about the fact that a cultural phenomenon such as YouTube, which began only 5 years ago, has been so incredibly influential on our society and pop culture.  It began in April of 2005 with this enlightening video about elephants.  Since then, it has been a medium for people who otherwise would have been completely unknown to become strangely famous, and for companies, individuals, officials, and other groups to distribute their messages to an audience that is larger than was ever possible before.

However, I still think that as much as people may gain from these advances in technology, they are undoubtedly losing something as well.  I am sure that this kind of thing has been said throughout the ages as new technologies have been invented.  With the car, people lost the motivation to walk.  With the advent of writing, people probably lost the will to memorize.  With the invention of the computer, people are losing the ability to think in the same ways that they used to.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, but with ever-decreasing attention spans, and ever-increasing connections to all parts of the world, people's minds are sure to be working in a very different way as the years go by.

Perhaps I am just a sucker for sitting under a tree and watching the world go by, but it seems like the days of this sort of activity are slowly (or maybe rapidly) diminishing.  After all, why not just download the newest nature-sounds-and-images screen saver?  Or how about throw on some relaxing songs on itunes?  Better yet, leave it up to Google!