From the upcoming e-book, Flying Car Syndrome
You may come across the view from clients that “Facebook is just like living in a small town”, or Twitter is “like overhearing people in a crowded subway car”. These people are suffering from the Garden of Eden fallacy; which is thinking that some new technology is recreating something that existed in the past, only updated for the modern world. In fact the the new technology and the old situation have little in common. They might have a similar function, like keeping in touch for FaceBook, but the fallacy gets problematic when people inflict other attributes of the old situation onto the new technology.
Your corrections will go something like “Well, no. What it actually does is…” will fall on deaf ears. Basically the Garden of Eden fallacy is a way for people to talk about some new technology without thinking about the technology. You cannot correct this fallacy without personally insulting the person.
This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog
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Written By Steve French |
Yes…. this seems about right
Facebook is nothing like living in a small town. I assume someone saying this is trying to make the point that everybody in a small town knows everybody else and same on Facebook.
People living in a small town know one another but stay out of everyone else’s business. Facebook far and away is modern technology’s greatest method to invade your privacy. Even if one sets their permissions properly Facebook still allows people to find you and find your stuff. It’s almost impossible to have a private conversation. Only use Facebook with the understanding the entire world will see what you write.
I hate Facebook and all other social networks