Internet companies and nonprofits like Wikipedia have been forced to choose between cooperating with the Chinese government and losing access to the … - Noam Cohen

From gadgets to social networks to video games, the decision not to embrace the newest technology is a choice to be out of the mainstream.

Once the butt of jokes for being the site where visitors could find anything, true or not, Wikipedia in recent years has become a more trusted source of information — certainly for settling bar bets, but even for weighty topics like Ebola.

An engineering degree is also no longer a requisite to using technology, as seemingly anyone today can install a printer or upload a video. Similarly, another signifier of nerd status — knowing obscure facts about favorite subjects — has also lost its currency.