Raymund Eich at The Transhuman Comedy picks on Christine Rosen of The New Atlantis for suggesting that the individualization of telecommunications programming, via TiVo and the like technologies,

[encourages] not the cultivation of taste, but the numbing repetition of fetish. And [such technologies] contribute to what might be called “egocasting,” the thoroughly personalized and extremely narrow pursuit of one’s personal taste. [Rosen]

Raymund reads Rosen’s position as being anti-technology: Rosen thinks, “Things were better in the past, and have since changed for the worst.” Raymund thinks we have always had a certain freedom to choose our stimuli; there was no golden age.

I find the speculation of future psychosocial dynamics resulting from technological advancements to be hit-or-miss. Some of Rosen’s concerns are intriguing. As usual, I’m constrained to evaluate them on the basis of personal, anecdotal evidence, because—alas—I’ve not done any studies.

I work with a high school senior who’ll graduate in May and who still can’t spell words like “pump” and “women” and even my name. (I think he once spelled my name as “Kurkest” or something similar.) Having worked with him for a little over six months, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s been indoctrinated or programmed. It’s always, “Playa [this],” “Playa [that],” and loud obscene rap blasting from his car. I’ve asked him why he listens to that music, and he can’t answer with more than “It’s hot!” If I ask him what the songs mean, he can’t explain. Granted, if not for MTV, cd’s, and a wide variety of radio stations, he’d probably be listening to Country/Western music; but he doesn’t have to listen to any one style. He only listens to one type, as far as I know. I should go back and highlight those preceding statements: he isn’t forced to listen to one style not of his choosing but can, and does, listen to one style of his choosing. My parents are the same way. I’m the same way.

I think Rosen is correct to suggest that the explosion of media sources promotes selfish insularity. (I, for instance, only view a few weblogs on a regular basis; no telling what I’m missing! ) Raymund is right to suggest that society has always been fragmented, in that groups formed around cultural identities and stuck to their own. The biggest difference now may be in where those people are. I’ll hazard a guess:

• In the past, groups formed communities based on shared culture and shared values in geographical enclaves. Individuals in those communities had a limited source of info/entertainment but were free 1) to try to introduce new forms of entertainment/aesthetics into the community, 2) to seek out communities where those forms were already popular, or 3) to start a new community somewhere else (like the Mormons). Sub-groups would form within larger communities; but in general, limitations in communications technology forced individuals to bond around similar themes and aesthetics within limited geographical areas.

• Nowadays, the “communities” are fractured at the individual level more than at any time previously in human history. A community might be comprised of individuals who live hundreds of miles apart. These communities are, geographically speaking, intermixed: Take ten random individuals in a neighborhood, and they may hold wildly varying aesthetics. This produces some interesting effects. Not only do we find that we have little to say to our neighbors, beyond a discussion of the weather, but we are also often geographically isolated from those with whom we share similar core values. Because we are geographically isolated from our fellows in the shared-community, we don’t need to hold to the expectations of that community when we are not in communication. (We don’t bump into one another on the street.) Finally, because our neighbors are often strangers to us—they are strange in comparison to others who share our aesthetics or core values—we might tend to become insular on the individual level in our day-to-day lives, not communicating with the neighbors and not communicating but infrequently with the members of our community.

As I said, I’m only speculating. On the opposite end of the “Technology-Society?” scale are those who think all technology which doesn’t kill is great, the more “advanced” the better.