Can the Tech/Media Worlds Hit “Pause”?

First why lay it at the doorstep of cable and telecommunications For those of you who missed it the Internetamp8217s retail growth was jumpstarted out of CableLabs and other researchers figuring out ways to use broadband within cable and fiber spectrum then pushing it onto cellular data and WiFi with of course much more to comeamp160 For those of you who think Iamp8217m favoring cable a bit I amamp160 It was Comcastamp8217s Brian Roberts telling Microsoftamp8217s Bill Gates to help invest to hit his vision Gates did Comcast helped fund the developments and the deploymentsCable helped enable the tech companies which seem to dominate the FANGs Facebook Amazon Netflix and GoogleCable also helped enable porn bullying terrorist recruiting false reporting and tech savvy dissenting from most everything groupsCiting a recent New York Times column by Paul Krugman a TED talk by the former Google guy in Egyptamp8217s Tahir Square named Wael Ghonim and his own long history of worrying about unintended consequences Steve asks the question that he called the amp8220most important issue we as the primary facilitators of the new amp8216information ageamp8217 must addressamp8221Does it turn out that social media is better at breaking things than at making thingsWell looking variously at the chaos following the Arab Spring the circle jerk of the Republican Presidential race and the overall state of politics worldwide you would have to answer that question with resounding amp8220Sure looks that wayamp8221Thinking of the state of the world it reminds me of those old ads showing a brain with the caption Your Brain on Drugs We can now replace that caption with Your Brain on the Internet And what would that be A world where simplicity rules God forbid you should be bothered with nuance most folks only listen or watch their own echo chambers of choice nobody watches anything that might challenge their thinking and if you should stumble across something that doesnamp8217t fit your views you are invited to get mad get angry get hateful and Twitter awayOr notSteve suggests a amp8220pauseamp8221amp160 Writing this week in CableFax Daily he notes amp8220I would suggest amp8230 that it would be wise to throttle back on all the hype about our new ways of instant communications instant information electronic buzz insistence on amp8216moreamp8217 and amp8216fasteramp8217 until we spend some time thinking about how all that power gets used and how we can ameliorate the clearly dangerous and growing threat it has become amp160We created this toolamp160 It is time we took responsibility for also promoting the technosocial ethics required to use it wiselyamp8221Hallelujah But I think itamp8217s already too late That doesnamp8217t mean that trying to better educate and encourage openmindednonconfrontational usage isnamp8217t worth some effortStill the answer to that question about Pandoraamp8217s Box has been around for centuries it cannot be undoneRandom NotesSpeaking of Google and its efforts to get the rights to sell you a settopbox that purports to integrate linear and Internet access to programming that someone else pays for you gotta admire the companyamp8217s amp8220something for nothingamp8221 approaches To say nothing of its penchant for enriching its own as seen via parent Alphabetamp8217s move to grant Google CEO Sindar Pichai stock worth 199millionamp160 Bloomberg BusinessWeek noted amp8220Every time you Google this story Sundar Pichai gets another cent Weamp8217re not sure what happens if you Bing this storyamp8221Be sure to put March 1st on your calendar amp8230 Canada will be doing the worldamp8217s purveyors of payTV a big favor as a sort of mandated a la carte commencesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageMyersBizNet management or associated bloggers

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Can the Tech/Media Worlds Hit “Pause”?

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Paul S. Maxwell

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 6) - By Carl Mayer

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Can the Tech/Media Worlds Hit “Pause”?

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