At the end of this short piece, Andrew Leonard takes on the the difficulties of distinguishing among technology and the roles that it plays in education and the construction of life. Our modern technologies embody the capacity to couple fantastically well with our nervous systems, but are indifferent to the ethical and substantial concerns in which we employ them. Leonard both gores and praises the President, to good effect in both cases. Leonard’s conclusion:

There is a difference between getting an education and watching the latest viral YouTube clip on your iPad, between establishing a college for the education of freed slaves and rallying 10,000 fans to a Facebook page. And there’s no contradiction between employing any technological means necessary to organize a successful presidential campaign and recognizing that there may be aspects of that technology worth criticizing. To any readers of this post who might be consuming it via iPad, I invite you to push that contradiction to the limit: Watch, and learn: <video of the president follows in the linked article>

Obama’s self-hating iPad attack – How the World Works – Salon.com.