Barack Obama's rant against technology

Don't shoot the messenger

America’s president joins a long (but wrong) tradition of technophobia

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Vercingetorix amans

You write: "This distinction, of course, is bogus. Anybody who has ever taken a meeting knows that trying to hold the attention of people with BlackBerrys is like trying to teach Latin to delinquent teenagers." I have taught Latin to delinquent teenagers. What is harder is trying to teach Latin to teenagers with BlackBerrys. They need to put down their BlackBerrys in order that they may learn Latin. This is what President Obama meant when he was speaking to students who study liberal arts in a college: he was saying that it is hard to learn classical and liberal arts unless one puts down one's BlackBerry.


The idea that an "external tangibility" is the direct fault of "bad human behavior" is ludicrous at best ... but it also serves as the basis for rationalizing the dark underbelly of human nature (i.e., blaming a minority for economic distress, blaming the gun for killing, blaming a joint for drug addiction, blaming a car for taking me to the bar and driving me home drunk)... the "tool" is NOT the culprit ... it's the dereliction of misplaced human values where "fun & entertainment" are more valued than "intelligence & thinking". Place a group of game playing fun seekers in a room with Albert Einstein and they'll end up laughing at his hair ... put a group of thinkers in a room with Lincoln Logs and they'll build a structural model of DNA.


I think the President already knows this. You just used a few column inches to confirm this.


@globe80 - iPods can indeed provide information in the form of podcasts, and to lump in iPads, which will have books, maps, and your email if desired is to be a bit of a curmudgeon about it all.
And this is surprising from a President who did, and whose supporters still are milking texting and email blasts for all they're worth. Originally Secret Service tried to say no to the Blackberry, he got that through so one would almost expect there'd be a White House staff member dedicated to looking at new ways of meeting people's information needs rather than a Presidental slamming of them.
As for new pressures, well, if we can't as a society stand up to the pressure of changes then we will die as a society.


Since when do iPods, XBoxes and Playstations provide information? Their primary function is to provide entertainment in the form of music or video. So for the president to say that the "information" they provide is merely entertainment is stating the bloody obvious. Either the president is saying that these forms of entertainment are inferior to other forms (that he personally prefers) or he is displaying his lack of proper knowledge of these technologies. Either scenario is laughable.

Eusebius Pamphili




He did spend something like a million dollars to have his lawn maintained. Of course he's going to yell, "Get off the lawn!" :^D


@kensai: You have a point, but consider: the vast data resources we now enjoy give everyone access to much more information, but also reduce the average quality of the data. I think we'd agree that the increase in availability more than compensates for the slightly degraded signal/noise ratio. However, this change pushes the advantage toward those who can filter and weigh slightly noisy data. Who's likely to be better at this? Probably those with a bit more experience to draw on. They've had more time to develop their critical judgment filters. I leave it to (what I presume to be) your generation to find out, but I'd guess that us creaky oldsters may get more out of this tech change in the longer run.

I'd also speculate that you and Mr. Obama are making very similar errors. The key is this: there can't really be any difference between information transfer and "education." That which transfers information will educate, by definition. If so, the policy moral should be neither to regulate media nor to attempt to distinguish "right" from "wrong" use of tech. The policy objective should be to move toward (1) developing good judgment in selecting, balancing, evaluating, and synthesizing information flows and (2) scrapping the underlying idea that education is a professional service delivered in classrooms to persons under the age of 25.


The technology of printing makes it very efficient to print and distribute books. Storage and retrieval was best accomplished with libraries, card catalogues, and book indexes. So for the last 500 years we have produced knowledge in book form. The most esteemed form of written fiction is the book-length novel, and the knowledge of the age has been codified in book-length treatises.

In the internet age, much smaller packets of knowledge can be shared and stored with no loss of efficiency. Display technology holds 25-400 words of text (cellphone to big monitor), with scrolling allowing more. Most importantly, search engines allow storage and retrieval of huge numbers of small documents without losing them. So the standard package of information has shrunk from a book to a bite-size packet that can be consumed in one thought. Yes, we lose something in shifting away from books, just as we lost the glories of practiced memory and storytelling rhetoric when we adopted books. It's a brave new world that we enter into, but we can accomplish little by standing in the way of progress except looking foolish and being run over.

One year into the presidency, and Obama's become a grumpy old man. Next he'll be yelling at the kids to keep off the White House lawn.


This must be the 435th time I've heard someone discredit tech-skepticism with citations of Socrates on writing.


Technophobia is for 2010 what laughter was for 1327 (if you have read or seen "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco).

Technology is a human power that can change the world for the better (as it has always done) but many in the "political priesthood" are afraid of it because of the necessary conservative stance they have to keep to appease their older voters who are almost always technophobes.

You can't blame the tech for a wrong use.

xxx hardcore


You write, very accurately:

"""But such Luddism is particularly curious in Mr Obama’s case, given that he is surgically attached to his BlackBerry, his presidential campaign made exemplary use of the internet, and he has used YouTube to great effect to deliver his message directly to viewers, circumventing the mainstream media in the process.""""

What you forget, however, is that for Obama and his types, only the information he wants people to hear is good. Everything else--that is, opposing views--is bad information.

What about Bob


The FCC intents to reclassify the Internet to telephone.

Precedent with Carter FCC’s “Computer II” decision and broadband Internet access by the Clinton FCC in 1998.

The issue should already be settled, but the FCC basically is pursuing the turn over of 30 years of policy.

What about Bob

This is not about technology in my opinion, but the control of information through that technology.

I found the speech troubling, and with actions of the FCC to make the internet a public utility in order to regulate it, ie control information. Educate might be termed indoctrinate and stifle how people view information that comes from outside their perspective, or should we say the "approved" perspective.

In any event, I am not looking forward to seeing a more China like approach to the internet that seems to be approaching.


Regardless of how intelligent a person he might happen to be, the President of the USA is the head of the government, and the government is - to put it politely - somewhat behind the technology curve. No wonder, then, that government officials at all levels worry about the deliterious effects of auto-magical devices. Remember, this is the same fine body of people who thought they could improve computer data security by issuing an order to all government employees to tape over their USB ports and henceforth refrain from using USB flash drives (a restriction that is still, unbelievably, in effect).

While the Russians and the Chinese turn out graduates who have significant competitive advantage in the computer skills they possess, the USA still relies on foreign-born talent to make up the bulk of its leading-edge innovators. And who knows what mischief they might be inserting into the nation's infrastructure? Surely Obama is wrong merely in the breadth of his condemnation. We should be out to ban ALL technological devices lest they not only corrupt our young but also create undue vulnerability in our utilities, defence, and transportation systems. Clearly the only sensible way forward is to return to the pen-and-paper system, that cannot be corrupted by any foreign enemy and will (mirabile dictu) require Americans to re-learn the lost arts of reading and writing. Not least, this will bring US government employees back into line with the rest of the nation for no longer will they have to endure their daily struggle with impossibly complex programs like Word and Excel, and no longer will they have to fall prey to the temptations of the Internet with its many - and easily clickable - distractions.



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