Is the Digitizatioin of Society a Good or Bad Thing?

As consumers shift their offline lives to an online world, the concept of "digitization" has many meanings, depending on your perspective. From a big picture, we are interacting with friends, family and co-workers more electronically than face-to-face. Communication is via e-mail, text messages, Facebook and other online means that in many cases are not only more convenient, but give you the ability to reach out and touch several people at the same time with your message.

Check out the following video and see just some of the examples of how business is changing. After you watch it, keep scrolling for some thoughts/observations.

So, it appears that the digitization of business (maybe even our society as a whole) is inevitable, but is that a good or bad thing? What does this mean for your personal relationships? While I'm happily married (13 years, thank you!), I had a conversation with one of my single friends who said that dating now is a completely different experience than it was a few years ago. The temptation is to "Google" for information on your date, check out their Facebook profile, snoop around their LinkedIn information, etc... Think about it, you could show up for that traditionally "awkward" first date knowing more about the person sitting across from you than some couples married 15 or 20 years ago knew about each other before saying their "I DOs". Is this a good thing?

From a business perspective, even the smallest mistake or customer service slip can spread across the 'net in an instant. That means someone on your team having a "bad day" can do more damage now than ever - but most businesses don't even have a strategy to monitor (and address) when something like this happens.

What do you think? Is this digital shift a good or bad thing for society? Not that we can keep it from happening (that would be like trying to keep the sun from coming up in the morning), but if we KNOW what's going on, we can develop strategies to address the changes the challenges facing us today.

Looking forward to your thoughts...
~Eric