Reality Bytes, but are we any better off?

1989: when reality began to byte; It was the year that inspired technologies like the internet and sat nav. But did the new toys teach us how to be happy?...

"In a simple sense, of course, tech does bring people together. But the real question is: to do what? Groups — tribes — form on the net as surely as they do elsewhere. I blog, I even Twitter in an absent-minded kind of way, and I have, I think, made real friends I have never met because of the former activity. But I am not sure that any of this amounts to anything other than a faintly disreputable desire to play with the stuff. Or a more primal desire to belong."