Consumption and Production

Today, though often we do not know, all of us are producers of information. The social web has changed the communication at every level, but participation is now so easy and so far from really advanced competences, that the technological awareness of people in latest years is possibly, overall, decreasing. Connection of media rarely match a correspondent connection of the human minds, let free from the trouble of choosing and less able to make decisions, and we probably should have to look less at the market and more at real people. Technology could give everything we need to be active actors on the stage of the world, but – this is true for culture as well as food - we are as at a crossroads where we can decide if to be active managers and producers of an important part of them, or buy everything, food and culture, from the multinational companies.

Technology Is Not a One-Way Road

Surrounded by new pieces of technology every day, nowadays citizens often do not have so updated schemes of thinking as the hardware and software they deal with. So, they go on mainly with old ideas and are not able to imagine the future beyond the suggestions of the market. Velocity and competition myths are not born exactly with the digital age, and nonstop connection could be probably something more than only to chat with friends, watching videos and listen to music on line. From different sides, in our experience often mixed into an indistinct set, commercial social networks and non-profit ventures have in fact changed a great part of our lives and habits. But the way of technology is not already drawn, as it depends much on our deeds and choices.

Let the Children Play!

Born in the middle of technology, kids today are “multimedia beings”, naturally dealing with electronic devices in a way that is puzzling for some adults. But many experiences with children along the years can be useful to enlighten an approach to technology not only of consumption, integrated in our “normal” life, as a part of the discovery path that every baby walk, watching and touching the world around, people, nature, objects and environments, and that many adult feel the need to recover even in their mature life. Examples are given of meeting with software and hardware, lost or forgotten technological experiences, false contrasts between the new and the old, confusion and shallowness due to the overwhelming abundance of things, need maybe to go back and “play” again, in order to fix some problems between the humans and the “digital.”

When Technology Becomes Popular

The story of mass technology begins in the Seventies of last century, when computers and video devices became “personal” and began to spread in homes. It is not only a matter of industrial production and market, as many “inventions” came from the base, common people, young students, cultural communities, sometimes driving the innovation beyond and even against the plans of the big companies. To know the story is also a way to become aware that anyone of us, possibly together, can do much more than what we generally expect, and also that “technology” is not an endless list of possibilities at our disposal more and more but, if we do not take part actively with our suggestion and choices, there is the tangible risk to waste in the swirl of market a great part of it.

Aware Consumers Are Active Citizens Too

Learning to pick up tools and data and use them according to our real needs, aware that we are all producers of information, it is the basic step to an active citizenship in the global world. From the example of the children setting up their “Virtual Museum of Small animals”, from the school yard to the Internet, the author argues about how also average people, thanks to the spread of technology, can develop shared models of production in the cultural and more in general third sector of the economy. But important innovations and changes of perspective can be applied also to agriculture and industry, above all sharing more and more the knowledge, that is maybe a possible response to many problems of the world today, for a sustainable development in the planet and the peace among the groups and nations.

At the Dawn of Digital Revolution

Our societies are technology addicted, in their deep functioning and in the daily habits of average people, who greedily consume apps and devices. A market oriented ideology is though aging things very quickly and making the memory of the past fade, even the recent one, so that many live as suspended on a nonstop present, projected towards a fanciful future, losing roots and perspective. The short period consumption landscape is also a hurdle to face as aware and active citizens the economical, social and political points of crisis, locally and globally, causing often social disruption, fear and insecurity. Going back to the years when the story began, watching diversities and analogies from the present, it can be useful to understand better our time, to deal with technology with more awareness and maybe to find out new or “old” solutions to some problems and live a better life.