<span class="gmail_quote"><br></span>Pat, <br><br>Thanks so much for the reference to the di Lampedusa principle. I can't believe in all my travels I haven't come upon it.<br><br>FWIW, I am in full agreement with your evaluation of Tapscott. I have met him, over years, several times up here in Toronto. "Growing Up Digital" was the most simplistic piece of technological analysis I think I've ever read. In that book, he suggests the this "new generation" is so "wired" that we can't possibly keep up.
<br><br>I think he mistakes "wired" for "ignorant of technology." Indeed, a recent piece of work I read suggested that youth do in fact not "see" technology. In my experience teaching undergraduates, they are not tech savvy at all -- disconnect their Wi-Fi and they are lost.
<br><br>In Wikinomics, I believe Tapscott is actually more cynical. I don't think he sees collaborative media as truly "transcendent."<br><br>No, I think Tapscott wants to make money. That's it. I think he thought to himself, "How can I scare companies with money enough to get a lucrative book deal AND consulting contracts?" This ties very much into "everything must change so nothing changes" idea.
<br><br>Of course this is just my humble opinion. And of course I am cynical and while not a technological determinist, doubtful of course of any object's ability to "transcend" anything else. I have doubts that transcendent technology actually
exist. This is evocative of Kantian transcendence to me and of course I
doubt that deeply. I am more of phenomenologist in my approach. What does technology disguise or obscure? <br><br>Trebor's notions around immaterial labour certainly qualify here -- collaborative media do obscure the free labour that goes into them. And also Wikis. Their collaborative veneer disguises the elitist participation in them.
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