> Misuse of computers is easy and a problem but no use is presently a bigger problem. This argument seems to be from that techno-utopian era, when we thought t

> Misuse of computers is easy and a problem but no use is presently a bigger problem. This argument seems to be from that techno-utopian era, when we thought that just having access to computers would elevate civilization, and that we'd always have access to computers, so things would keep getting better and better as long as we embraced technology. What happened instead was a bit more complicated than that: when people got access to ubiquitous computing, it did teach them a new set of skills, and they did lose some old ones. But, we don't live in the world many people expected would come about as a result. We live in a different world, with many tradeoffs we hadn't expected. Some good things, some bad things. But one thing I think it's safe to say is that the average person is not using computers as tools to think in more abstract and sophisticated ways than they were capable of in 2002. So, the argument he's making is phrased as pragmatic, but I wonder to what extent that argument just assumes a certain, positive outcome. Would the author make the same argument, with the same level of confidence today?