THE THIRD WAVE
TELECOMMUNITY
At the level of longer-term social policy we should also move rapidly toward “telecommunity.” Those who wish community restored should concentrate attention on the socially fragmenting impact of commuting and high mobility. Having written in detail about this in Future Shock, I will not retrace the argument. But one of the key steps that can be taken toward building a sense of community into the Third Wave is the selective substitution of communication for transportation.
The popular fear that computers and telecommunications will deprive us of face-to-face contact and make human relations more vicarious is naive and simplistic. In fact, the reverse might very well be the case. While some office or factory relationships might be attenuated, bonds in the home and the community could well be strengthened by these new technologies. Computers and communications can help us create community.
If nothing else, they can free larger numbers of us to give up commuting—the centrifugal force that disperses us hi the morning, throws us into superficial work relationships, while weakening our more important social ties in the home and community. By making it possible for large numbers of people to work at home (or in close-by neighborhood work centers), the new technologies could make for warmer, more bonded families and a closer, more finely grained community life. The electronic cottage may turn out to be the characteristic mom-and-pop business of the future. And it could lead, as we have seen, to a new work-together family unit involving children (and sometimes even expanded to take in outsiders as well).
It is not unlikely that couples who spend a lot of time working together hi the home during the day will want to go out in the evening. (Today the more typical pattern is for the commuter to collapse on returning home and refuse to set foot outside.) As communications begin to replace commuting, we can expect to see a lively proliferation of neighborhood restaurants, theaters, pubs, and clubs, a revitalization of church and voluntary group activity—all or mostly on a face-to-face basis.
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