Better, worse or all the same

In The Information – How the Internet gets inside us, Adam Gobnik identifies three different perspectives of commentary with respect to the Internet and the changes it brings:

All three kinds appear among the new books about the Internet: call them the Never-Betters, the Better-Nevers, and the Ever-Wasers. The Never-Betters believe that we’re on the brink of a new utopia, where information will be free and democratic, news will be made from the bottom up, love will reign, and cookies will bake themselves. The Better-Nevers think that we would have been better off if the whole thing had never happened, that the world that is coming to an end is superior to the one that is taking its place, and that, at a minimum, books and magazines create private space for minds in ways that twenty-second bursts of information don’t. The Ever-Wasers insist that at any moment in modernity something like this is going on, and that a new way of organizing data and connecting users is always thrilling to some and chilling to others—that something like this is going on is exactly what makes it a modern moment. One’s hopes rest with the Never-Betters; one’s head with the Ever-Wasers; and one’s heart? Well, twenty or so books in, one’s heart tends to move toward the Better-Nevers, and then bounce back toward someplace that looks more like home.

All three perspectives make an important contribution to the thinking around this and none of them should be ignored. I think this is particularly true, because there really is no turning around anymore: Having introduced new knowledge and technology, once a massive progress has been put into motion, it is not going to be simply undone.

I am counting myself in the Never-Betters camp, for the most part. The above article is an excellent contribution to the discourse though. I am looking forward to learning more, particularly about the Ever-Wasers perspective that emphasizes that similar debates (and struggles) occurred at other times in history in comparable manner, when significant changes were introduced.