Why We Freak Out About Some Technologies but Not Others - 6:30
AM As anyone who reads the news knows, there’s often a side
effect to new technologies: moral panic. Facebook causes
narcissism! Texting is making us illiterate! But the funny thing
is, other technologies don’t provoke such alarm. Take Square, a
tool that lets everyday folks accept credit card payments. It’s
tipping into mainstream usage, changing how small businesses
operate and how friends split a bar bill, but it hasn’t provoked
any doomsaying. What’s the difference? Why do we freak out at
some technologies and shrug at others? Genevieve Bell believes
she’s cracked this puzzle. Bell, director of interaction and
experience research at Intel, has long studied how everyday
people incorporate new tech into their lives. In a 2011
interview with The Wall Street Journal‘s Tech Europe blog, she
outlined an interesting argument: To provoke moral panic, a
technology must satisfy three rules. First, it has to change our
relationship to time. Then it has t