Be very specific about what technology you are highlighting as the cause, else this analysis loses its usefulness. Digital is not a technology. It’s a protocol of electric technology (on or off).

It was *writing* that created those ailments noted on the ‘have nots’. They come from the individualistic/specialist point-of-view mass literacy forwards. And writing give us the modern world.

New digital-network (electric) technologies return us to an oral-acoustic world at a increasing rate – a rate which we now feel, but the change has been there since the invention of man-made electricity.

Oral culture/non-literate culture (what we might be tempted to call ‘primitive culture’) had/has all of those digital haves without ever having been anywhere near a piece of electrical technology!

A real-time acoustic space is precisely what the internet has given to us in addition to our folk (for that is what we now call it) acoustic culture. We now have 3 main mediums and they all converge on the mobile phone: oral, literal, virtual.

The funny thing is, those retrograde visual/literal attitudes symptomatic of not-having, will find new expression as new aspirations. Look at the class systems and economic/social specialisations in mmorpg’s guilds, for instance.

For competitive behaviours, again, look at gaming worlds: Wow, PlayStation Home, Spore (a bit) and at the popularity of day-trading, online gambling, betting on anything that can be bet on, social networks where you can buy your way to celebrity…

For private, well, every social network that allows you to lock out strangers. Interesting that before SNs it was forums and bulletin boards (oral/acoustic/open) but we added back a literal/specialised feature: privacy.

This is not a divide. And these are not human values, as such. They are simply the effects of technology/media working on us.

Technology directs human behaviour, but it operates on everyone all at once and at the level of the cultural which we then inherit as a kind of social logic. That’s why we always miss its effects first time around.

As ever, the medium is the message.

http://tinyurl.com/2hdnza

I think the concept of changing values is very interesting. I feel as though it’s common to assume evolution (in the broadest sense of the word) takes a lot of time. But there are reasons to believe that organisms can change quickly when their environment does — Like the moth that evolved to match pullution-tinted trees:

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/biology/evolution/genetics/naturalselection.html

(fourth para)

I think the ‘digital’ landscape can drastically change values very quickly for similar reasons. In two year periods our entire culture of doing something (sharing photos; reporting news etc) can change. I’m with you in regard to values not being immutable. I wonder what we’ll think tomorrow!

Very good point that. In a way, the kind of people we are observing, the kind of people we talk to, are somewhat like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I have a few more points to include, but it will tip the comment over. I will make a post of it soon.

And oh, have subscribed to your blog as well.

I think you’re right that it’s not so clear as I’ve made it. That could be said of anything really – more often than not we deal with shades of grey not black and white. However, I was also very conscious when writing this that it shouldn’t be construed simply as technology usage versus non usage. I believe there is a difference between using technology and embracing it. I don’t think that you can embrace it without being an optimist, but I think you can use it without committing.

I think the real flaw is not what you’ve pointed to but the fact that this is a circular construct. Optimists will tend towards embracing technology and so on, therefore it may be that technology helps to reinforce qualities that are already there.

I commented on his blog that this list you’ve drawn up is very B&W and that the divide is more Grey.

Your point about people being less critical in the digital world. Um – not so sure. Because there’s so much anonymity, and because conversations and debates in the digital world happens without physical contact, people are more encouraged to be caustic, to be critical. About 1 in every 10 comments on any blog will be irrelevant, troll-baiting and overtly critical. As well as an ad-hominem (My comment is the 6th. So it’s not any of these. Yet)

Besides, like I mentioned on Charles’s blog – I know enough people on both sides of the divide (Yes, there is a divide) who are pessimist. Just as I know enough people on both sides who are optimists. I know people who hate to share their likes on a blog, preferring instead to write very school-book-ish reviews. And there are some old-skool journos and ad folks who are very open and supportive of opinions.

But yes, the divide is of human values. As will all divides be. Only, these values will be seamless, and of different percentages of the same colour. Not diametrically opposite colours.

Maybe new behaviour = new experiences = new thoughts = reassessment of values.

Therapist Bill O’Hanlon is a great advocate of telling his clients to ‘do one thing different’ – by making even a small behavioural change, they are opening up a new world.

A stumbling block can be when we’re so attached to the old thinking/values that we won’t even try doing something new.