First, I want to apologize for the wind noise -- it is, however, the Texas Panhandle! Sorry about that, but if you can slog through, please share your thoughts / experiences in the comments section.
Here are thoughts that the Route 66 truckstop brought to mind-- New technology leads to unexpected encounters. It's been that way from the very beginning.
Let's think about it, Route 66 was built because of emerging, evolving transportation technology. People became mobile, and they also met people and had encounters they never envisioned before.
Today, communications technology and social networking are also leading to surprising encounters -- with people, ideas, places.
Earlier technologies, such as navigation technologies in Europe, as well as what I like to think of as "financial technologies" (early stock / trading companies, limited partnerships, in and after the Renaissance).
Now we're in all kinds of new technologies -- we blink our eyes and we miss five or six iterations. Does it matter -- at least in the way we structure our "technologies of the imagination"?