I think that there's a big force driving this: personality.
Society is impersonal. Institutions are impersonal. The purely scientific view of human beings is impersonal (we're just matter obeying the laws of physics, and we can't be anything more, because there's nothing more that exists).
As far back as Rousseau, there has been a current of thought that rejected science and glorified the individual.
Far too often, technology is impersonal. ("For a list of the ways that technology has failed to improve the quality of life, press one.") As technology replaces persons with machines, we interact with machines in situations where we used to interact with humans. (Getting a tweet from your friend is nice, and there really is another human on the other end of that tweet, but it isn't the same as a face-to-face conversation.)
But people still crave the personal touch, even if the structure of society provides less of it. I think this is what'd driving the trend that Brin observes.
Society is impersonal. Institutions are impersonal. The purely scientific view of human beings is impersonal (we're just matter obeying the laws of physics, and we can't be anything more, because there's nothing more that exists).
As far back as Rousseau, there has been a current of thought that rejected science and glorified the individual.
Far too often, technology is impersonal. ("For a list of the ways that technology has failed to improve the quality of life, press one.") As technology replaces persons with machines, we interact with machines in situations where we used to interact with humans. (Getting a tweet from your friend is nice, and there really is another human on the other end of that tweet, but it isn't the same as a face-to-face conversation.)
But people still crave the personal touch, even if the structure of society provides less of it. I think this is what'd driving the trend that Brin observes.