Luddite President

The Economist, while recognizing Obama’s tech savvy, is critical of his pessimistic view that new communication technologies distract the public rather than empower it. “Mr Obama complained that technology was putting ‘new pressures on our country and on our democracy’. But iPods, iPads and suchlike are not to blame for the crazy theories—about, for instance, politicians’ birth certificates—that circulate in the blogosphere. People have always traded gossip: the internet just makes it easier and quicker. The culprit is human nature, not technology. And new communications technologies tend to strengthen democracy, not weaken it…”