From My Reading Surplus

Reading the first chapter of Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky, a pro-Internet/social media book that mentions the gin craze of the early 1700s in London and how that was related to the overwhelming (and negative) effects of sudden industrialization resulting in densely packed urban environments. Reminds me of a similar mention of the Mother Gin in the book Drink by Ian Gately.

The devastation wrought by that liquor lasted nearly fifty years, and the two accounts differ slightly as to the why it abated. In Drink, the explanation seems to be a hybrid of Wesley's preaching, less stringent anti-gin laws (the draconian ones only made the poor drink more by flouting the rich law-makers) and the emergence of a middle class. In Shirky's book, the laws passed were trying to tackle the symptom and not the cause and (to borrow someone else's notes), that "gin drinking only subsided as new institutions, etc, arose in response to wider changes."

It said that we are now going through a similar transformative process in the move from urban to suburban alienation. The author said that the "gin" replacement in our time is television, as a substitute for declining social interactions. He says that the reason many young people are now watching less television is they want a more participatory rather than passive (television) experience, such as the Internet and social media.