From Kamran Razvan:
Human beings are social animals. We live longer when we are in groups and die younger when we are alone. We recover from illness when surrounded by loved ones and stay longer in hospitals when left alone. Nothing is new in how hungry we are for communication and our thirst for belonging to a tribe. We all search for a place where “everybody knows our name”!
While our ancestors joined tribes to survive and did not have much choice in the tribe since all tribes were mostly geographically bound, today we join tribes for entirely different reasons. Today’s tribes are more like flocks of individuals with common interests and language. In the past, tribal members had to communicate with people they did not like or with whom they did not agree. Today's tribe has no reason to have contact with those with whom they don’t agree.
Facebook, MySpace, and all other social networking sites consist of those that agree with us. Our network is limited to everyone that further amplifies our self-verification needs. We listen to music “our” way, we read the stories that agree with “our” worldview, and we subscribe to podcasts that further prove “our” side of the story.
I truly wonder what this trend will do to our evolutionary process as human beings. Perhaps we are taking a step backward before leaping forward into becoming a super organism. Let’s explore this thought ..
Ants: How do they communicate? How do they behave and function as organisms that behave in perfect synchronicity? Every member’s presence is sensed by others and each serves a function that further complements every other member’s contribution.
What are we doing now? We visit a site and Digg the site and mark it with Reddit and tweet everyone to follow our trail. We are no longer a single entity bound by a geographical presence. We are being followed by everyone that thinks as us and for the most part behaves as we do.
In the absence of diversity and opposing viewpoints are we becoming smarter or just simply dumber?
Do we have to get dumber before we get smarter?
A few links & reading materials.