I don’t think I’ve ever been a Digital Utopian. I might have come across as one and I’m sure I’ve said things that are a bit utopian but I’d hope it’s always been about the potential of this stuff.

Let’s use anti-depressants as a metaphor because it amuses me to do so. Society is kinda sick and needs fixing. (This is not news. Society has probably been sick since 10 or so people decided to come together. I mean, have you not read Asterix?)

The modern Anti-D’s, the SSRIs not you parents’ Valium, don’t pretend to make you happy. They give you the opportunity to make yourself happy by acting as a crutch. If you’re in the dark pit of despair they’ll switch the light on and provide a ladder, but you need to climb up the ladder.

And that’s what social media (or whatever you want to call it) provides. It’s the potential to connect people in new ways, to share information in new ways and to learn about the world and each other in new ways. But you have to work with these tools and develop these opportunities.

Google etc have all the answers but not always on the front page. You need to learn how to use Google.

Crowdsourced popularity rankings (Digg, Twitter trends, etc) suck because of the crowd, not because of the system.

And so on.

This is going to take a while to sort out. People have been crushed by monolithic media control systems for generations. I reckon we’re looking at 50 years before we can shake that off. And even then this new networked utopia will only be as good as the people in it.

Am I a nihilist utopian? Maybe.

Further aside, I wonder if the social media backlash ties into the Kübler-Ross “five stages of grief” model: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. We’ve been through Denial and I think we’re into Anger. Better get the SSRIs out for the next part…