Chapter Ten

It's a valid point that the Internet and technology may be producing claims that it can market but not really feed. I think it's a bit of a stretch, however, to say that we are all fundamentally manipulated into thinking that technology is the be-all end-all. I don't think that we'd have the backlash like we do if that were the case. People are more diverse in their critical thinking skills and worries for us all to be affected to the same (extreme) extent that Levy is positing.

I also think that, even though I love my Jane Austen novels dearly, I don't treat them with the reverence I would a religious object (if I were religious). Documents do not hold that same sway, for the most part; I think, because they are so abundant, they are also more temporary and disposable. Books and papers were more respected in the nineteenth century than they are now, and fewer people were even functionally literate. The reading culture has become the common culture, I think, and there is no more divide between the two. And the common culture is not, for the most part, particularly revered. Thus, I think that the same thing will happen with the new tech, and it will quickly (because the pace is quicker) dissolve and become part of the popular culture, rather than its "exalted" status as the technology culture grants it now.