Technology & humanity

One very candid columnist in the Richmond Times-Dispatch says our technology is outpacing our humanity, citing a school hallway fight between two girls captured with a cellphone camera and posted on the Web by a third girl. "Everyone, it seems, wants to be a star," Michael Paul Williams writes. "Unfortunately, these young folks too often are channeling Al 'Scarface' Pacino … as their motivation. Toss in an explosion of technologies their elders don't always comprehend, and the implications are frightening." He may sound like a Luddite, but he's pointing out something that turns up in a lot of places, online *and* offline, where there is unmediated, private interaction in a homogenous group of people who are angry or otherwise not thinking of the implications of what they say and do. Humanity goes missing. Williams has a point when he says, "In the movies, robots invariably rebel against humanity. But with our demonstrable capacity for cruel and inhumane treatment of each other, who needs Terminators? We must create a culture of responsible use of portable technology, before it becomes a menace to society" (or at least to the well-being and reputations of people who aren't using it responsibly). We parents can be there for them, not to spy or overreact, but to keep the communication lines open and, when there's receptivity, help them stay alert, think before they post in public spaces, and show the same humanity online that they would in "real life." We need to parent the same in cyberspace as we always have offline.