Social Media: What Were We Thinking in 2008?

In 2008, after I’d written a book with the subtitle “How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future,” I was labeled a “Luddite” more than 50 times in various lectures, panels, and radio interviews. I argued that social media, multitasking, and computers in the classroom were threats to knowledge, taste, and bookish habits, and so came off as a clueless Boomer. The same thing happened when other tech skeptics of that era spoke out against the spreading digital zeal in those heady days of Web 2.0.