"To discover to the world something which deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant; to prove to it that it had been mistaken on some vital point of temporal or spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can render to his fellow creatures..."
John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty"
We look at social media today, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, as if it’s something new that could revolutionize the world. In fact, the antecedents of social media define the very evolution of civilization. It is the mass media; newspapers, broadcasting and the one way dissemination of information, of the past two hundred years, that is the exception, not the rule. Today, the sum of all of our technology actually takes us back to our roots, as a more social and interconnected society.
Tom Standage, the digital editor of the Economist gives us historical context for social media and shows how it perfectly echoes past centuries, in his new book Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years. My conversation with Tom Standage: