Steven Colbert Has His Finger On The Pulse Of The Nation

Last week Colbert was "congratulating" students at the University of Florida for standing by and doing nothing while a fellow student was Tasered while attempting to ask John Kerry questions during a speech and predicted that the brave students would fight back by blogging about it. Predictably he reported the next day that some students protested his comments on their blog. And here I am writing about it in my blog. Makes me ashamed to have a blog. Remember action on the streets?(or in the administrators office?) Colbert is right. Now whenever any one feels that rights are being violated they add to the general decline of the national discourse by blogging about it.

Why do I have a blog? Because some in my profession feel that "social softwares" are the greatest doggone thing since sliced bread, so I feel the need to "become familiar" with blogs despite real misgivings about the amateurisation of North American culture. I also have a facebook account although it seems to me that facebook society attempts to mimic all aspects of american adolescent culture except possibly the warmth of human contact. Take Top Friends for example. Why do I want to rate my friends and post their ratings on my page? I already went to junior high, years ago, and I really don't want to go back. Or do I really need to know that according to Facebook, I am considered a social outcast? (ouch!) Also as a Christian I am sometimes put off by some of the *ahem* cruder aspects of Facebook (and anti social aspects as well, to be frank)

This is not to say that libraries should not be interested in social technologies, just that sometimes we get all excited and happy about the cool (and fun!) new technologies and very rarely ever spend the time considering the social consequences that new technologies leave in their wake.