Jared Diamond is a Professor of geography whose books I have really enjoyed.  He previously won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel” and he writes a lot about how societies rise and fall and what leads to the growth of populations.  His latest book is extremely interesting and covers a wide variety of topics, including the war between Finland and Russia, Chilli, Australia and Germany, but what I found particularly interesting was that he thinks one of the big dangers in many countries is the way that people are getting on.  He says that to a large extent that is because of how much TV people watch and how they no longer communicate in person by electronic devices.  He says because we no longer experience each other as live people and just see each other as digital messages on a screen, we don’t have the normal human tendency to not be terribly rude to somebody who is directly in front of you.  As he says, “… but we lose those inhibitions when people are reduced to words on a screen.  It is much easier to be rude and dismissive towards words on a screen than towards a live person looking you in the face.  Once we’ve thus got accustomed to being abusive at a distance, it is an easier next step to being abusive also to a live person.”