Over the last 40 years, I had a career in technology. Sometimes, I felt like I was with Babbage holding a flashlight as he moved some huge levers to switch ones to zeros to get his computer to work. At other times, I imagined I had discussions with Grace Hopper about some crawling creature that mysteriously appeared in a program we were writing, which bugged the mess out of her.
Grace spent countless nights fixing those programs. Later in life, while working with Hollerith, I dropped so many card decks and spent endless hours reassembling them that I started having nightmares about IBM cards flying out of keypunch machines. I finally sought therapy from Freud. Sigmund thought I saw the keypunch machine as some sexual object, and he advised me to go into technology detox!
And so, I pretended to be secretly engaged in technology for the next 35 years. In January 2016, I discovered Social Media. He was a bold, loud, in-your-face man who shared everyone’s secrets. He had a remarkable memory because he remembered everything anyone said to him, and boy could he gossip. In Barbados, we would say he is a “lick mout”. Anything shared with him, in a matter of seconds, might show up on the shields of warriors in Swaziland, in the Animal Flower Cave in Barbados, or Capital Hill in the USA. I was not sure how he accomplished this feat until I met some of his children: FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, and many more. He is as old as Abraham, and he is still spawning young ones. And to make matters worse, his children are having more children, who are having children and they all share the same DNA. All lick mouts’.
If you are a fan of Social Media, between him and his offspring, they have rewritten how information travels, how organizations restructure and operate, how rebellions organize to effect change in their countries, and even how wars start. Social Media became quite powerful and rewrote regular, written, intelligent communication to some contracted Neanderthal murmuring. For example, OMG, translated by the caveman as “Oh no, not the bone!”, or in cave speak, “ugga, nug za” as they commence to bash each other over the head with a large bone. Of course, we now know that Social Media is much older than we first thought because the kids in Caveland recorded their hieroglyphics to share around the nearby caves.
Now, having met Social Media and his children, I am amazed at the speed information travels. But more surprisingly, I am astonished at how we as an evolved species seem so ill-prepared to solve conflicts. Social Media and his children gave us a vehicle to quickly and efficiently move information faster than the speed of thought. However, I am pleasantly surprised at the many people praying for and encouraging each other. I am equally dismayed by the violence broadcasted over Social Media. It is the issue of violence in our society, and I plan to address in future articles of Oh, No, Not The Bone! Tune in next time for more episodes of “Oh, No, Not The Bone” and Other Caveman Utterings from Caveland, Social Media, and his children. Ugga, nug, za!
Stan Brooks, PhD