NEGATIVE - CRITIQUE OF TECHNOLOGY 165

WE MUST CRITICALLY ANALYZE TECHNOLOGIES LIKE THE INTERNET BEFORE EMBRACING THEM

WE MUST NOT UNCRITICALLY ACCEPT DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES LIKE WE DID WITH THE AUTOMOBILE AND TELEVISION

Paul Van Slambrouck, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, The Christian Science Monitor, December 28, 1999, SECTION: USA; THE LONGER VIEW; Pg. 2 TITLE: In world of high tech, everyone is an island // acs-EE2001

Still, voices are being raised and for many critics, this is just the formative stage of what may take decades. Indeed, many point to the fact that the message of environmental and child-advocacy groups that the impact of the automobile and television as technologic advances was not universally good went unchallenged for decades before gaining mainstream acceptance. Nowhere is the popular reverence for computer technology clearer than in the classroom.

THE INTERNET IS NOT LIKELY TO STIMULATE DEMOCRACY -- WE THOUGHT TELEVISION WOULD DO THAT AND IT DIDN'T

Talbott of NetFuture sees a parallel between the coming of television and hopes that computer nets will stimulate democracy. "People assumed that by bringing distant politicians into the intimacy of the living room, the television would reenliven participatory democracy. But instead it helped to bring cosmetized, image-conscious, poll-driven politics, while voter apathy steadily increased."

AS INTERNET REVOLUTION PROCEEDS, CRITICAL VOICES QUESTION ITS BENEFICENCE

With e-commerce accelerating this holiday season faster than a runaway sleigh, America's embrace of computer and Internet technology is evidently warm and tightening. Yet just as other technologic leaps in modern American history begat skeptics and naysayers, the digital revolution that began with the popularization of the personal computer is beginning to rouse its own fledgling movement of questioners. These are not "the end is near" extremists or those simply arguing for better products, greater privacy, or clearer protections from the excesses of the Internet. Rather, they are a combination of antiestablishment philosophers and contrarian thinkers who have deep reservations about what they see as this period's unqualified reverence for computers and the networks that link them.