I especially connected with the bit about "fear of missing out", and with her earlier post (linked in the article) on that subject. When I started playing with

I especially connected with the bit about "fear of missing out", and with her earlier post (linked in the article) on that subject. When I started playing with computers in elementary and middle school, it helped me put aside some of the trivial things that were important to my peer group at the time, like wearing the right brands or being seen with the right people. Technology was about making a better world, sharpening useful skills, and attacking hard problems that used to be impossible to solve. The connection between people that technology has brought over the last couple decades is awesome for a great many reasons. I doubt I need to defend that point. The biggest downside though, for me, is the invasion of the messiness of the social world into the idealism of the tech world. It bothers me when I go to an event that is ostensibly a "hackathon" or some similarly maker-oriented affair, and the mood is not unlike high school, or hollywood, or a nightclub. Many of the people there are paying acute attention to signals of status from others, and working on sending the right signals of status themselves. It is my impression that motivations like elevating one's social status, and fear of missing out, are the primary things bringing most people into the world of technology today. Improving the world, solving hard problems, and making things seem to be lower on the list. I'm sure communities focusing on these things are still thriving, but they seem to be getting harder to find, because the status seekers can be pretty good at adopting the lingo of the idealists.