15 Jan 09 What is the internet doing to us?

Tags: internet, social

From the year 2006, which I like to the call the year of the social awakening, social networks pretty much exploded.

We are becoming connected at an alarming (exponential) rate. In humanity’s past, nothing on this scale and magnitude has happened. There hasn’t been much time to realise what this is doing to the human psyche? Is it all positive? I’ve been writing down some of my thoughts and I am going to share it with you.

One should first probably ask why social networks have been become so popular? What wasn’t apart of our lives a few years back is now part of your daily routine.

To me, the answer is simple and history proves it. Lots of humanity’s greatest inventions and milestones were efforts to help us get together. Why did we develop language? Each person is trapped in their own mind, wanting to convey by some measure what THEY are experiencing. A need for sharing.

As this Waking Life (awesome movie. watch it) excerpt shows:

“A desire to transcend our isolation and have some connection with one another.”

Once people saw what social networks can do to their lives, it exploded. It provided a complement and positive extension to our already established social lives.