I can find statements about negative effects of Facebook and other social media but I wonder if higher levels of communication are going to bring long-range improvements to humans. I have read that various early Americans were confident that this continent was too large for a nation and that people could not and would not communicate nor travel to meet with each other. The 1800's and 1900's were highly affected by the emergence of railroads and the telegraph. Eventually, along came the telephone and those three communication inventions and networks to support them have changed what we know, who we know, what we say, and what we can do.
It seems possible that simply talking and writing about any difficulty tends to lead to improvement. Sometimes, communication is expected to simply be about expressing sympathy or disagreement, positive or negative emotional language. However, in today's world, especially given growing connections to sources of knowledge and to research, discussion can supply new ideas, new views, new possibilities, new sources and access to new materials.
Naming a problem in order to state by voice or writing what is the matter can often be a first step to learning about it. Modern learning is often about questioning: is a certain idea correct? Is it true? How do we know? What don't we know that would help? Who knows about this? Who has experience with this?
The printing press, about 1500, had a big effect on the distribution of knowledge and led to a big increase in the demand for and availability of books. But it has only been a relatively short time that people have in large numbers learned to read. I read recently that only a couple of centuries back about 85% of humans could not read and that now about 85% can. It is true that what language one reads and what country one reads in, matter. Years ago, I read a quote that a man said his native tongue was a "tomb", meaning that few books were published in his language and he hadn't learned to read any other. But don't kid yourself: we are working on the problem of different languages and different cultures. Maybe we will come to respect and work with them.
It is commonplace to say that human minds are a wonderful tool but a small group of humans who communicate with each other makes a very powerful tool for developing ideas and improving them.
