All these changes in media and communication that have taken place over the last century are due to a huge technological development. Furthermore, this is a cultural and technological evolution and it is the nature of evolution that it accelerates. Therefore "the pace of change is itself accelerating", according to Ray Kurzweil "the 20th century was like 25 years of change at today’s rate of change. In the next 25 years we’ll make four times the progress you saw in the 20th century. And we’ll make 20,000 years of progress in the 21st century, which is almost a thousand times more technical change than what we saw in the 20th century".
"Technology is a drug.
We can’t get enough of it.
We feed it to our kids and watch them grow on a forced diet of desensitisation. Switch on the TV and someone will tell you 50,000 people died in India. Two seconds later you’re watching a comedy. Technology can do that. It gives us simulated realities that make us oblivious to the real world. Heroin does the same thing. So do most class A drugs. Basically we are all addicts – addicted to the comfort and convenience that technology provides – addicted to the notion that progress is directly related to the size of your computer screen… When I look in front of me, I see two paths – spiritual or material. Two worlds – developed or developing. You decide which is which…"
Yes, our daily lives have improved greatly thanks to new digital media, satellite communication and all the technological advances that surround us. But one thing we must not forget is that all that is there to help us, not to make us become its slaves by making us oblivious to what really matters. Now that we have access to more information we should make good use of it in order to try to solve the problems that we have around the world.