Although I believe the computer to be a vastly overrated technology, I mention it here because, clearly, American have accorded it their customary mindless inattention; which means they will use it as they are told, without a whimper. Thus, a central thesis of computer technology – that the principal difficulty we have in solving problems stems from insufficient data – will go unexamined. Until, years from now, when it will be noticed that the massive collection of data have been of great value to large-scale organizations but have solved very little of importance to most people and have created at least as many problems for them as they may have solved.
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
This quote is from Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death, a prescient look at technology (mostly TV at that point) – and how the form or medium of a technology significantly impacts how it is used. As a whole, our culture sees technology as a good thing and we adopt it without enough critical thought as to the dangers or downsides.
Reading this today in light of the massive data collection by tech platforms, and the use of this data to monetize and manipulate, should cause us to seriously consider when a technology has greater downsides than upsides, and how to prevent misuse at the hands of bad actors or powerful entities.