Digital Media is it bad for us?

Ironically, within the Media there is alot of talk on whether or not the digital revolution (computers, Iphones, ipods) harms our intelligence as a species. Several critics say that it causes several aspects of human interaction and public safety to be put at risk.

The major concern opponents have deals with privacy and safety that goes along with it. Social networking sites such as Facebook and myspace may allow total strangers to view anyones private information publicly if the settings are not adjusted. This causes great issue when people begin to get stalked by completely anonymous users who are looking for a variety of things (identity theft). However the privacy issue doesn't stop there. WikiLeaks is a public website that shares classified government documents with the public. This can cause potential harm to government operations that require secrecy in certain fields. Obviously this poses a threat to public safety.

Another concern with the digital age is that people will no longer interact face to face with each other. Groups of people now gather via the internet and communicate through chat or video. The public concern is that these people will forget how to interact in the real world. This also has a potential to harm emotional and psychological growth within a person. With people spending more and more time on the internet one might call it an addiction. These people that are "addicted" may become emotionally stunted or psychologically damaged to the point where they eventually won't know how to communicate with the rest of the world.

With a wealth of information that is gathered at lightning speed, one can only question whether or not we are retaining all of it as we would with a book. Now with the world only a click away a research paper becomes near obsolete and the need to retain information becomes useless. This further leads to us as a people modifying our behavior. No longer do we need to know how to build our own shelter or cook our own food, the issue being we as a society are becoming lazier and lazier.

All of these concerns are valid however I believe that we as a people are better than that. We adapt to and incorporate these technologies as we need them. Even if the first few generations have trouble eventually as a species will adapt the ways of the old and the new to create an even more perfect society.