Technology & Community

Is technology helpful to communities or harmful?

Technology advancement has had an impact on everything. The question is never whether technology has impacted something, but how. Communities are no different.

While many people look for impact of technology by focusing on the younger generation and the technology they use, I don't see this as the most important group of people or the most important technology. Instead of looking at cell phones and video games and teenagers, I prefer to look at the industrial revolution, and also the dramatic increase of intellectual jobs in the market. My reasoning is simple. Communities started breaking down before Nintendo, XBox, and iPhones ever existed. Put another way, I think the garage door opener had ten times more impact on the community than the Nintendo did.

Communities are people who know each other face to face, who trust one another, and rely on one another. Some define them as broader groups, but I'm specifically talking about smaller communities. These types of communities are rare in today's American culture, and I think the shift happened during the Baby Boomer generation, not during Generation X,Y, or millenials.

Technology like automobiles, tractors, combines, and airplanes seem to have impacted community much more dramatically than computers. Communities used to be self sufficient with crops, livestock, clothing tailors, and builders. Commuting to work was rare. The obvious example are the Amish and Mennonite communities who have resisted industrial technologies, but who clearly have tight knit communities.

Mennonite communities have a set of values that the industrial revolution took away from the rest of us. Sharing things, and depending on your neighbors is a good thing. Committing to a location is valuable.

While we may not be able to undo the industrial revolution, I do think we can try to undo the independent way of thinking it brought us to.