"Old" Information Technologies

"One of the costs suffered in confronting such new technology..was that of a sense of loss; loss of old behaivor, old values, old relationships, old senses of self." According to Catherine Covert and other writers - who have introduced the topic of information technologies in their beginnings as part of our readings - have all agreed that with the new comes the extinction of the old, and that the old is hard to attain once its been nearly forgotten. But, much to my surprise, was the way their arguments spoke with conviction, much less a history lesson. I've never really thought much about the reality of communications technologies and how they possess a spirit that can't be seen or touched, but transmits words onto paper through the use of the telegraph; brings an audible voice through the speakers of a radio device, or audio and visual onto the t.v. screen. Back when the telegraph was invented, according to James Carey, "Electricity was shadowy, mysterious, impalpable. It lives in the skies and seems to connect the spiritual and material." The quick recieval of information through these technologies bare no constraints of location. The technologies simply unite sender and reciever as if they are in dyadic circumstances.
The loss of behaivor still strikes a chord with me, for the reason being that anymore our world is so conditioned by the pace of our technologies that it is hard to be patient and wait for things to come. Back in the old days, people had to wait to recieve a response from a relative who lives in the next state. Today, with the use of a phone or computer, contact is instantaneous. Even conversations with people become hurried, since it is not easy to chat while our patience level is composed by the instant gratifactation that our technologies give us. It is almost as if our reality is diminished and altered within the energy and spirit of these technologies as if we're riding in the passenger seat and zooming passed planet Earth. What was practical has become a complex array of new imagination and existence. When lives are hurried, our maturity levels decline, since our want-it-now mentality makes us appear as young children who fuss when they don't get their way. It is a perfect portrait of selfishness. Waiting and being obedient to patience breeds a discipline that makes you more self-controlled.
To make another point, in our extistence today, our technologies have erased the senses of privacy. The expansion of the world has become condensed so that a person's daily activities can be shared with someone 100,000 miles away with the help of a search engine. What used to be a world made of individuals and individual purpose is becoming a global community. The connection brought upon parties through communication technologies illustrates how we are all connected without the "contraints of geography." It just makes me wonder that if we are all forced to further standardization and unity when it comes to future technologies, why there should be no reason to see the whole world conforming to one government, one currency, and one set of beliefs.
But, in essence of all this, our technologies can be enjoyable. However, we rely on technologies too much. We invest too much faith in man's technological creations that totally diminish the gift of freedom on this Earth and self-reliance to get a job done without the aid of wires and transmittors. When I read through history books of people travelling across the terains of the U.S. to the mountains, there was adventure. Today, you don't get that same feeling of adventure since everything is so rapid and taken for granted. You're merely watching your life go by in the blink-of-an-eye.