Culturite

Let’s not fool anyone. You can do your job without using Twitter. You can get through any number of days without blogging. You don’t need to consume podcasts to perform your daily duties. Everything on your desk and in your calendar and piled high on your task list doesn’t require the use of Facebook, Friendfeed, Myspace, to get the work done. You don’t need RSS, nor do you need to know the name of even one popular blog.

MILLIONS of people all over the world get by just fine without these tools. Every day. Pick the small town where you live, or even a decent sized city space, and ask a random assortment of people whether they do any of the above. (Starbucks’ denizens don’t count, because we all know most Internet startups live in Starbucks and Panera).

Unless you’ve engineered your role to be wholly dependent on these technologies, you could go about your business without them and live a full and productive life until death.

So why, then, and I’m asking YOU this question, do millions of us thrive in this environment? Why are we threading the social web? Why are we spending hours a day reaching out, building connections, cultivating relationships, producing and consuming media that only a sliver of the world is even noticing?