The Calcification Of A Columnist

But even with this truth established, the fact is that I’ve noticed a trend. Increasingly, when I come to write this column, I get depressed. The more I look for a topic to write about, the more my mood spirals downward.

I’ve been writing for MediaPost for over 12 years now.  Together, between the Search Insider and Online Spin, that’s close to 600 columns. Many — if not most — of those have been focused on the intersection between technology and human behavior.  I’m fascinated by what happens when evolved instincts meet technological disruption.

When I started this gig, I was mostly optimistic. I was amazed by the possibilities, and — somewhat naively, it turns out — believed tech would make us better. Unlimited access to information, the ability to connect with anyone, anywhere, new ways to reach beyond the limits of our own DNA: How could this not make humans amazing?

Why,  then, do we seem to be going backwards? What I didn’t realize at the time is that technology is like a magnifying glass. Yes, it can make the good of human nature better, but it can also make the bad worse. Not only that, but technology also has a nasty habit of throwing in unintended consequences, little gotchas we never saw coming that have massive moral implications.

Disruption can be a good thing, but it can also rip things apart in a thrice that took centuries of careful and thoughtful building to put in place. Black Swans have little regard for ethics or morality.

I have always said that technology doesn’t change behaviors. It enables behaviors.  When it comes to the things that matter– our innate instincts and beliefs — we are not perceptibly different than our distant ancestors were. We are driven by the same drives.

Increasingly, as I look at how we use the outcomes of science and innovation to pursue these objectives, I realize that while it can enable love, courage and compassion, technology can also engender more hate, racism and misogyny.  It makes us better, while it also makes us worse. We are becoming caricatures of ourselves.

Everett Rogers plotted the diffusion of technology through the masses on a bell curve and divided us up into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. The categorization was defined by our acceptance of innovation.

Inevitably, then, there would be a correlation between that acceptance and our sense of optimism about the possibilities of technology. Early adopters would naturally see how technology would enable us to be better. But, as diffusion rolls through the curve ,we would eventually hit those for which technology is just there: another entitlement, a factor of our environment, oxygen. There is no special magic or promise here. Technology simply is.

So, to recap, I’m old and grumpy. As I started to write yet another column, I was submerged in a wave of weariness.   I’ve  been emotionally beat up by the last few years. I’m tired of writing about how technology is making us stupider, lazier and less tolerant, when it should be making us great.

But another thing usually comes with age: perspective. This isn’t the first time that humans and disruptive technology have crossed paths. That’s been the story of our existence. Perhaps we should zoom out a bit from our current situation. Let’s set aside for a moment our navel-gazing about fake news, click bait, viral hatred, connected xenophobia and erosion of public trusts. Let’s look at the bigger picture.

History isn’t sketched in straight lines. History is plotted on a curve. Correction: History is plotted in a series of waves. We are constantly correcting course.  Disruption tends to swing a pendulum one way until a gathering of opposing force swings it the other way. It takes us a while to absorb disruption, but we do — eventually.

I suspect if I were writing this in 1785, I’d be disheartened by the industrial blight that was enveloping the world. Then, like now, technology was plotting a new course for us. But in this case, we have the advantage of hindsight to put things in perspective. Consider this one fact: between 1200 and 1600, the life span of a British noble didn’t go up by even a single year. But, between 1800 and today, life expectancy for white males in the West doubled from thirty-eight years to seventy-six.  Technology made that possible.

Technology, when viewed on a longer timeline, has also made us better. If you doubt that, read psychologist and author Steven Pinker’s  “Better Angels of Our Nature.” His exhaustively researched and reasoned book leads you to the inescapable conclusion that we are better now than we ever have been.  We are less violent, less cruel and more peaceful than at any time in history. Technology also made that possible.

It’s okay to be frustrated by the squandering of the promise of technology. But it’s not okay to just shrug and move on. You are the opposing force that can cause the pendulum to change direction. Because, in the end, it’s not technology that makes us better. It’s how we choose to use that technology.