On ICT - again...

So I finally got my driver license last Friday!

I put off driving lessons for a long while - thinking I will either become rich enough to have a chauffer or never become rich enough to have a car. Well, Zipcar changed that concept drastically and I finally said to myself that I needed to learn - and so I did. In 6 weeks, thanks to my friend Toan, I went from never touching the wheel to passing the Virginia road skills test and possessing my very own driving license. It was a big deal, yeah, so within seconds I managed to post an exclamatory remark on Facebook, via my Iphone. Ten minutes after that, I already got several replies from all over the world, before I even touched the temporary driving permit.

Facebook and IT have majorly changed our mode of interactions - I don't need to say much about this obvious fact but would only like to zero in the significant speed by which we are updated about our friends' lives. Even during an important meeting, I did no fail to update on my friend's break-down and efficiently sent a consoling little card. Even in between deadlines, I never forgot to timely wish a friend a happy birthday. Facebook saved me the hassle of searching for information, as they are all readily available, just seconds after the events themselves.

Yet as my friend Will contemplated keeping his blog - a mechanism to let his friends worldwide know about his adventures and daily minutias - I realized that Facebook, like any other utilility-generating mechanism in this world - was also driven by the law of diminishing marginal returns. The more information we get, the less utility we gain from each information. This is a big generalization I know, but I think it does take away a little bit of excitement to learn about a friend's new dog, new job, or new man (or men, to be precise).

So, what do we do? Should we change our mode of access to information? I personally think that the changes in IT is inevitable - and what we should do is to change our own attitude of embracing it. Go for specialization - a blog is for something more special, more personal, as opposed to daily updates to be posted on Facebook. But that in itself is a challenge, because not every blog can paint the best picture of the owner's life and thoughts.

But we live for challenges, don't we?

Photo credit: Spoongraphics.