Let\u2019s pause for a moment, and take linguistic stock.<\/p>\n
Technology has many societal impacts, but perhaps one of its most visibly\u00a0evident\u00a0is how the tools we use change\u00a0how\u00a0we communicate with each other \u2014 so, literally, how technology rewrites\u00a0language itself.<\/p>\n
We see this in the willing stockpiling of techie\u00a0jargon into individual vocabularies (the Androids, the iPhones, the lesser-seen Surface Books); the new word coinages (blockchain), the new and expanding uses for existing words (a \u2018message\u2019 is a noun; \u2018message me\u2019 an imperative verb asking someone to send you\u00a0an IM); the creative portmanteaus (glasshole is\u00a0a particularly good one), the tech-obsessed\u00a0idioms (I don\u2019t have bandwidth for that right now), and so on and on.<\/p>\n
We also get to glimpse the places where\u00a0technology might be in the process of placing stress on\u00a0social structures or societal norms. Again, glasshole is a great\u00a0example of that \u2014 a word that effectively contains the full story of Google Glass\u2019 abject consumer failure wrapped up in\u00a0those two mocking syllables. As I\u2019ve said before, it really does pay to listen carefully<\/a>.<\/p>\n Well, here\u2019s another interesting\u00a0phrase that just popped into my sightline\u00a0as part of\u00a0a business\u00a0pitch:\u00a0\u201creal humans\u201d. The full slogan<\/a> for the\u00a0travel-related product it\u2019s attached to reads: \u201cReal humans and smart technology make travel easy and fun again.\u201d<\/p>\n