Faster than a speeding bullet. We used to say that about Superman, but now it refers to the rate of change going on in our culture. Most people think the U.S. economic downturn is solely the result of collapsing financial institutions on Wall Street and bursting of housing market bubbles. Sure, they played and are still playing a leading role in the demise of economic prosperity as we have known it. But there are other changes significant enough in their own right to have pulled the rug out from under our nation’s entire economic structure–the changes caused by technology.  

Technology did not suddenly explode onto the scene like a runaway freight train. It was a slow train coming.

We’ve all seen the amazing innovations in consumer electronics over the past decades. Who can even remember the world before personal computers, cell phones, ipods, ebooks, and so forth.  

But behind the scenes technology has been bringing both great expansion and innovation, as well as massive devastation to the businesses that have formed the foundation of our economy for decades. Technology, like the proverbial snowball rolling down the hill, has been silently but steadily rolling along, developing traction, gaining steam and momentum, forming its platforms, expanding its presence, spreading out to the right and to the left, increasing in forcefulness, gobbling up everything in its path. Like an army that destroys a city as it moves through it, leaving rubble in its wake, technology has left untold numbers of traditional businesses in ruin.  

Perhaps more significantly, technology has left traditional business models in ruin. Few industries have been left untouched. Overlay that on top of the nation’s banking and housing troubles, and you can understand why we are now seeing such widespread economic calamity.  

We will survive, and we will thrive. The benefits that technology brings us are truly awe-inspiring, Once our heads stop spinning and we all adjust to the brave new digital world, things will settle down and we will be grateful to have made this transition.   

In the meantime, I think I’ll go curl up with my new Kindle.

Isaiah 43:18-19 – “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”