The New Media Reader - Chapters 2-4

What struck me most about these chapters was the underlying theme of how far a computer can really go.  It is something that my father is always concerned about -- if you can talk to your friends on your blackberry, instantaneously, without actually having to hear their voice, what is happening to communication?  It goes back to the old argument about whether or not my middle school allowed spell check to be used on the school computers -- was it destroying our ability to learn how to spell?  And why, if I could use a calculator at any given time easily, do I have to learn math at this point in technological history?

In Bush's article, he claims that "[t]he world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it."  And this was said in 1945.  I wonder what Bush would have thought about the ease at which people can communicate, in a completely non face-to-face manner through text-messaging.  Would these technology proponents support a "memex" that valued the least amount of human interaction possible; like a blackberry, that not only allows an "encyclopedia" of information to be recorded in one place, but for that encyclopedia to be able to be held in our pockets?