Last week’s New Scientist featured a few articles on the social networking revolution; Living online: I’ll have to ask my friends and Bruce Sterling’s short story, I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Google were particularly interesting.

My post about the Amish echo’s the sentiments of the Living Online article:

Our society tends toward a breathless techno-enthusiasm: “We are more connected; we are global; we are more informed.” But just as not all information put on the web is true, not all aspects of the new sociality should be celebrated. We communicate with quick instant messages, “check-in” cell calls and emoticon graphics. All of these are meant to quickly communicate a state. They are not meant to open a dialogue about complexity of feeling. Although the culture that grows up around the cellphone is a “talk culture”, it is not necessarily a culture that contributes to self-reflection. Self-reflection depends on having an emotion, experiencing it, taking one’s time to think it through and understand it, but only sometimes electing to share it.

That made me stop and think about my connection to the Hivemind. The irony of it all, being stopped to think about the Hivemind by the Hivemind, wasn’t lost on me either :)

So try and pick up a copy at your local news stand if they’re still around, it’s definately a worthwhile read.