Is Technology Making Us Anti-social?

This short article on silicom.com makes me wonder about this question. It suggests that people are spending so much time using computers that their interpersonal skills are beginning to suffer. This has long been suspected of programmer, IT support staff and other geek-types who seem so much more comfortable dealing with objects governed by binary logic than human beings governed by complex emotions. But the article suggests that the diminution in social skills caused by computers is affecting all workers, not just techies.

Sometimes things are given names that get to the heart of what they really are. "Personal Computer" is one such spot on designation. What makes it really interesting is how long it took before many people, certainly business people and especially IT managers, began appreciating how personal computers, and increasingly other electronic gadgets really are to people.

Computers are not just tools of self-expression, they are themselves a form of self-expression and identity. Look how people customize them. What they do with them. And as we are seeing with other electronic gadgets like cell phones and i-Pods, they can be fashion statements and vital pieces of one's identity. So is it really surprising that people are relying too much on technology to communicate with each other? Or that it may be having an adverse effect on our interpersonal skills?

If It's Broke, Fix It

We may have reached a subtle turning point in the debate about the health care system in America.

As this article in today's NY Times shows, the debate is no longer about whether there is a problem, or even whether employers should be the main provider of health insurance in America.

There seems to be a growing recognition that employer-based insurance alone isn't working - for example, according to the article the vast majority of the approximately 40 plus million people in this country without health insurance are working.

So the question now is what to replace our current system with - i.e., what mix of private and public programs and initiatives will increase coverage, keep up quality and manage costs?

In the private sector, people from different ends of the idealogical spectrum such the service workers union and big companies like GM and Wal-mart are joining forces to push for change.

When will the politicians at the Federal level get off their butts and take the lead? This is one problem that demands a holistic, national solution. And everyone needs to assume their fair share of the burden - no more of the cost shifting mentality that permeates the current system.