Waste More Want More ?

That seems to be a basic trend of Americana as identified by the Census Bureau’s 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States and outlined in today's New York Times Article Who American's Are and What They Do.

Some interesting tidbits:

* 92 Million Americans bought a product online last year

* Americans used the Internet on average 183 hours last year -- surprisingly low from my perspective

* Americans create on average 4.4 lbs of garbage a day, each!

But this quote seemed odd:

The distinctive effect of technology has been to enable us to get entertainment and information while remaining entirely alone,” Mr. Putnam [a public policy professor at Harvard] said. “That is from many points of view very efficient. I also think it’s fundamentally bad because the lack of social contact, the social isolation means that we don’t share information and values and outlook that we should.”

Perhaps he's attempting to characterize TV or just over generalizing, but from my pespective one of the great things about the 'Net is that it has changed the way we gather and view information -- whether its sharing links with friends or participating in massive group filtering on sites such as Metafilter or Digg from a private experience to something very social.



Posted by dmd on December 15, 2006 02:51 PM