It is common for the public, policymakers and scholars in each generation to say "Things ain't what they used to be". Indeed, I started off my "Community Question Re-evaluated" paper with that quote way back in the early 1980s, when folks were talking about the death of community (way before Bob Putnam did so). I look forward to reading the Dumbest book and seeing what systematic evidence the author provides. In my experience, Internet scholarship keeps showing net positive benefits while the media keeps going oi gevalt! Government plays it both ways -- worrying about cyberstalking, etc but getting all excited about the new world of the Internet superhighway. YMMV, Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology University of Toronto 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php Elvis wouldn't be singing "Return to Sender" these days **** PLEASE NOTE NEW ADDRESS AND FAX NUMBER **** _______________________________________________________________________
Barry Wellman wrote:
It is common for the public, policymakers and scholars in each generation to say "Things ain't what they used to be"...
"...you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality." Socrates, (as quoted in Plato's Phaedrus, ca. 370 B.C.E.) complaining about how the new media of the day (the syllabic alphabet and papyrus) were screwing up the younger generation. This discourse has been going on a long time. -- Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Communication Studies Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA http://academic.luther.edu/~johnsmar/ ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain
participants (2)
-
Barry Wellman -
Mark D. Johns