That New-internet Smell

I'll bet a good search of turn-of-the-20th-century newspaper and magazine archives would uncover at least a few awed stories of how horseless carriages helped save people's lives. It is part of the process by which a culture accommodates rapid technological change. It is also, I think, a sign of how "new" the technology seems in people's minds.  A story about the use of automobiles to aid the victims of the earthquake in Chile simply isn't news, these days, without some other distinguishing angle.  That we see stories such as this one, about the use of texting and of twitter to communicate information about post-quake Chileans tells us something about how new our attempts to absorb these media.