Has hyper connectivity lead to The End of Absence?

There once was a time before the internet, before the automobile, before air conditioning, and television and radio and even before the printing press. All these inventions and many others, dramatically transformed the ways in which we live. At the time each was criticized for the ruinous impact it would have. The printing press was thought to be the end of religion, air conditioning would keep us inside, and not allow us to connect with others. The automobile would destroy community and television would pollute our brains.

The fact is that each of these inventions changed us and changed the way we lived. And the result was not good or bad. It was just different. It was all part of the process of human evolution. Ever since man first emerged from the cave, we have been engaged in an ongoing effort to try and shape and define our man made environment, just as it continues to try shape and define us.

Michael Harris thinks we need to reclaim some of that lost world. He details his ideas in The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection.

My conversation with Michael Harris:

The real digital divide

If you watch movies or read novels or simply understand the drama that is the human condition, you know that human behavior is often shrouded in mystery. Why we do what we do, how we act and what we think about at four AM, are at the heart of what make us who we are, and in fact what makes us interesting. On the other hand, if we reveal everything about ourselves; if Facebook, and LinkedIn and social networks in general track our every move, our every action, where is the mystery? If every thought is posted, or tweeted, or shared, then where is the human discovery? If we forget that we are more than the sum total of our data points, then Andrew Keene is here to remind us. Keen argues in his new work Digital Vertigo: How Today's Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us, that the social network may be weakening, not building up our relationships.

My conversation with Andrew Keen:

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The Business of FREE

We get much of our music on line, for free; but it has devastated the music business. We've seen classified ads on Craigslist undermine the economics of newspapers and journalism. With You Tube, free is jeopardizing the very fabric of the movie and television business. How can the free business model of the Internet coexist with our desire for new, better and quality content? This discussion is at the center of a new book by Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired Magazine and the author of the international bestseller The Long Tail. Now in his new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price he compels us to think in new ways, as Internet users and consumers.

My conversation with Chris Anderson.

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