Where the Future Meets the Past

The technology craze is getting crazier - that much is obvious. I learned the other day that Google launched a new service called Latitude, which allows you to keep track of your family and friends' whereabouts on a map using certain smart phones.


My first thought is - "Why the hell does anyone really care?" It seems pointless, excessive, and yes, a little creepy. But these odd trends fascinate me. Technology has always scared people because they fear it will change us. They fear it will dehumanize and depersonalize us, while giving more control to those in power and less to the rest of us. But in fact, we're ending up with the exact opposite.

We've long since feared that Big Brother would be watching us - little did we know that it would be us watching each other, and the participants would enjoy partaking. Our voyeuristic and exhibitionistic desires are being fed in the most obscure and trivial ways. Your virtual map shows you that John's at work; now he's on his way home. Then you log on to Facebook and John tells you what he ate for lunch, how much traffic was on the freeway, and what he's watching on TV tonight.

But regardless of the uselessness of the information, and the oddity of our attraction to it, it's amazing how technology is mirroring our democracy - not impeding it. The government doesn't really care where you are or what you're doing (if you're law-abiding), but your friends do. And the government can't keep capitalism from putting all the power you need in your own palm. It's something we invent for ourselves - by the people for the people. And whether I like it or not, there's something beautiful in that.

When I discovered the internet in 1995, anonymity seemed to be a big draw. You needed a screen name just to log on to AOL and access the internet; it was as if it was a mandate that you be anonymous. After all, wasn't part of the fun being anonymous? To say what you want and then walk away as if it didn't really happen; it wasn't really you; it didn't really mean anything.

But as the internet matured, so did we. We decided that we didn't want to live in a virtual vacuum. Some of us do, but many of us don't, not all the time. Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, blogs - it seems that the fantasy of being anonymous is surpassed only by the fantasy of being known.

But I don't think it all boils down to everybody getting their "15 minutes of fame." I believe that many people actually do want to connect, in a real and legitimate way, to other people. In this way, I see technology as something that does not change us, but something that preserves us. Communication, information, and entertainment have been around since the cavemen days. We are not reinventing ourselves - we're just getting better at doing these things.

So instead of your cave friends telling you they will be on the other side of the hill, thanks to Google's Latitude, we can see the data right in front of us. I don't know if we need to. I don't know if we should want to. But the urge to connect, to know, to band together as a community, virtual or not, remains the same.