I have been looking at some of the grimmer offerings that thoughtful FB friends have posted. I don't mean the bland pretending-to-be-meaningful memes that are the bread and butter of so many posts, but those with a strong social or political message. Sometimes they can be quite jolting, but it is always better to be shaken up than anesthetized. Uncomfortable to view they may be but the chance to address social ills or injustices is a noble pursuit, even where it is confined merely to words. Actions can follow if enough people feel the same way.

Many of these kinds of posts address the alleged skewed interface between technology and people. Some focus on the way we are seduced by the lure of gadgetry. Everyone reading this post will have noticed that the public space has been invaded by portable technology, and principally the smart phone. I have such a phone and it serves a utilitarian purpose - to communicate, to inform, to entertain. But I recognise that having a smart phone is in itself a threat to my autonomy unless I am aware of its distracting influence, its unshakeable omnipresence.

Theodor Adorno addressed some of these issues when he wrote about the "culture industry" seventy years ago. He noted that capitalism had co-opted culture (as with much else), creating a commodity out of it. Culture was thereafter for profit alone, with art being subsumed within the various modes of production. Perhaps worse was how this new product became the go-to escape for bored and alienated workers, who could seek some relief from stultification through the radio, the cinema, records, and later TV. Today the full panoply of mediated diversion is available and the list grows, with more promised. I don't agree with all of Adorno's positions, but think there is much to be gained from applying such an analysis.

We should never, however, underestimate the human capacity to think through the implications of phenomena. It is arrogant to think otherwise.