Your writing about knowledge and communications lead me to consider Information Theory, a subject a Professor Shannon, whose work is that on which we built digital communications, for instance, networks ... One of the first laws of information systems is, a symbol repeated most often has the least value and conversely, a rare symbol contains the most valuable information.

Thinking how we have access to billions of social interactions these days it seems like humans themselves have become 'symbols' and when treated as such have little value ... "too many rats in one cage" was the phrase ...

I've had the life experience of living in both densely and sparsely populated areas, and certainly rural folk tend to smile and wave to everyone, whereas city folk (this could also include the 'subdivided and conquered' suburbia where it seems most westerners live these days) tend to not care to acknowledge others. We could liken the online experience as a 'very crowded city'...

As far as critical thinking on a social level ... the most profound influence I had in those formative years of which you speak had been the American stream of consciouness writers, Emerson, Thoreau, Frost ... "I chose the path less taken ... and it has made all the difference."

Do you think if Frost put that on a meme that'd have any great effect? While technology has brought about a quick and massive shift, I see what we have now didn't just come out of nowhere, the American Transcendentalists saw it within a half a century of the beginning of American industrialism ...