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I think it's a continual and repeated mistake to equate continuously blogging/facebooking/newsreading/messaging as "the internet".

The digital world is just another tool in the human toolbox, how you use it is what defines you.

edit - I should have said something closer to "the digital world offers a very large _selection_ of tools added to the human toolbox" my sentence was guilty of the same problem that I was warning against :)




For a counterpoint to the notion of "just another tool", see Marshall McLuhan. Forms of media have immense impact on human psychology.

See "The Agenbite of Outwit," a short essay of his that I think is a good introduction.

http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss2/1_...


I actually agree fully (thanks for the link) and that doesn't remove your agency in picking the tools and when and how you use them.

People need to be more aware of the cognitive results of using their particular selection of tools.


Absolutely.




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