Human(e)

MIT prof Sherry Turkle has just published a book about social media. The essential theme is that Facebook and other new media are making us "less human."

Turkle — one of the earliest observers and students of technology's affects on human beings — is now saying what many of us have thought privately — if we take the time to think: We have seen our real-time interactions with friends and family erode as our eyes — and attention — are glued to Facebook and Twitter on our mobile phones and computers.

There's an argument to made, for sure--we're now connected to more people than ever before. Instantaneously. We're able to have spontaneous face-to-face conversations we never thought possible just a few short years ago.

I think, perhaps, the better argument is that social media has made us "less humane," not less human. It is so easy to attack someone else without having to worry about repercussions (not counting the loss of a few friends or followers).  Look what it did to the homosexual community.

Heck, Twitter even brought Bears quarterback Jay Cutler to tears in the locker room.

I think our task for the next year should be ways to make social media more humane. It's already all too human.