Connectivity: Intellectual Lubricant

Connectivity is the intellectual lubricant of our time. And today, more than at any other point in human history, we are all connected—with each other, with our leaders and followers, with our friends, relatives, and even strangers—for better or, all too often, for worse. Connectivity has sparked revolutions, cured disease and famine, and led to more advances in a shorter period of time than any previous point in history. Of course, today’s social media frenzy is not the first such effort. Connectivity and its media enablers began with Alexander Graham Bell and his telephone, or even earlier with Samuel Morse and his telegraph, followed by Guglielmo Marconi and his radio. But each incremental advance, down to today’s revolutionary connectivity is all part of a fundamental urge of the human species—to communicate, to connect. That’s what we set out to explore in...