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A History of Media Technology Scares
jamesswift writes "Vaughan Bell at Slate has written an interesting article on the centuries old phenomenon of hysterical suspicion surrounding new media and the technologies that enable them. 'A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both "confusing and harmful" to the mind. The media now echo his concerns with reports on the unprecedented risks of living in an "always on" digital environment. It's worth noting that Gessner, for his part, never once used e-mail and was completely ignorant about computers. That's not because he was a technophobe but because he died in 1565.' The best line comes near then end: 'The writer Douglas Adams observed how technology that existed when we were born seems normal, anything that is developed before we turn 35 is exciting, and whatever comes after that is treated with suspicion.'"
CNN reported that "Email 'hurts IQ more than pot'"
Well from that article,
He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points -- the equivalent to missing a whole night's sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana.
Well, not that I trust psychiatrists that much but I guess the only thing this is telling me is that marijuana really isn't the brain destroying demon they've made it out to be. Doesn't really convince me that email rots my brain.
Not a single shred of evidence underlies these stories ...
Well, to be fair, these are psychiatrists conducting surveys and "research." Probably counts as a 'shred.' I think the surveys are a better bet than research but your blame doesn't lie with the media ... rather the institutions giving these psychiatrists degrees and the "peer reviewed" journals publishing this work and research.
My work here is dung.
Gotta love the Douglas Adams quote, I can agree with it to a point, as I am only 30. Also, lots of technology that I thoroughly appreciate, I find my nephew just expects to work, and work well every time. (He's 16). I Can't imagine a technology that I would ever be suspicious of though, but then again I'm a nerd.
Isn't this just different age groups acting out their normal roles?
The young take the world as they see it and learn from it, adults try to use it productively, and elders warn people about observed and potential dangers.
As you get older, you generally become wiser through your experiences. For most of us, we have learned to 'believe it when we see it' after a while and tend to act accordingly when met with some new technology promoting some grand advancement. That seems a very reasonable approach considering the unforgiving world we live in.
That said, fear due to uncertainty is not healthy and certainly what the TFA seems to allude to. In a way, TFA is just describing how FUD affects how technology advancements are viewed by those over 35 or so.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data ... His warnings referred to the seemingly unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the printing press.
So he chose to release his findings in the exact form of what was 'overloading people with information'? A printed book?
..."
Boy I'd like to design that back cover:
"Find out how things like this very book you hold in your hands right now is destroying your mind and plaguing you with confusing and harmful thoughts
"You'll pick it up, read it, burn it and never read another book again!"
"Tell your neighbors to buy this book so you can outsmart them and take their cattle!"
"Your feudal lord's new tool of oppression: Printed word?"
My work here is dung.
Too late! Information overload!
based on what Adams said: "The writer Douglas Adams observed how technology that existed when we were born seems normal, anything that is developed before we turn 35 is exciting, and whatever comes after that is treated with suspicion" I have to be suspicious of everything I develop now that I am older that 35
For some reason, and I still do not understand exactly why, people tend to re-invent things. Once you have seen this happen a few times, you don't tend to be impressed with every latest doo-dad.
As for the reason, there are lots of factors. But the ultimate factor is that nothing is really permanent, certainly not humans but not even ideas. Communication and education have high costs. Information storage degrades, in human memory and in physical forms. Even interpretation of long-stored information is a challenge. There are all sorts of incentives not to share innovation, both inherent and by design of various political and economic systems.
If you're being sold a better video player or a better cheeseburger, it might actually be better for you. But it is almost as likely to be worse. It may not even be better for the person who created it. It may just be newer instead of better. Progress is not a given, and the vast majority of people ("consumers") tend to be uncritical automatons.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
An 1883 article in the weekly medical journal the Sanitarian argued that schools "exhaust the children's brains and nervous systems with complex and multiple studies, and ruin their bodies by protracted imprisonment." Meanwhile, excessive study was considered a leading cause of madness by the medical community.
hmmm... I think they may be onto something....
What? It doesn't to me, actually. Modern schooling and news media give us many of nifty tools, but also do damage to our education and ability to think independently, and so in turn to society. So, I'm not sure I agree we can dismiss debate like this. I pick this quote because it's an example of why this is a poor argument.
The whole argument the author uses assumes we have consistently progressed using media and surpassed the problems media critics pointed out, therefore critics in the past are wrong. Maybe it's true that they are always rather negative and forget the positive aspects of change, but there have been a huge range of critics with lots of criticisms that seem to have manifested true. Sorry, but you can't throw out an argument like this author did in a 1-page article, he just has too many presumptions for too complex an issue.
Douglas Adams had an English degree. What the hell did he know about psychology and information science? He wrote one somewhat-funny book series. Why quote him? What did Leary say about this? Jung? Meade? Wilson? Just because DA said it doesn't make it so. I see plenty of old professors that are far more tuned into to technology and information processing than the twenty-year old students that sit in their classes. It's an overgeneralized stereotype, and a poor one at that. The initial analogy is idiotic in any event. There's a world of difference between the time it takes to assimilate information from a library full of books (ala Gessner; serial-processing - one at a time) and juggling email, a cell phone, tv, the radio, books, journal articles, textbooks, facebook, twitter, podcasts...
Floating in the black seas of infinity without a paddle.
> The writer Douglas Adams observed how technology that existed when we were
> born seems normal, anything that is developed before we turn 35 is exciting,
> and whatever comes after that is treated with suspicion.
"We"? Speak for yourself, Adams.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
There's more trouble on the supply side than on the consumption side.
The problem with news is that the pundit/reporter ratio has swung way too far in the pundit direction. There are too few people out digging up info, and too many people analyzing it. "News is what someone doesn't want published. All else is publicity." With so much incoming free information, willingness to pay people to go out and dig up real news has declined substantially. It takes minutes to rewrite a paragraph from a press release. It takes days of work to get the information for a real story.
Look at the front page of Google News. How many of those stories started as a press release? Most of them. Sometimes, all of them.
In the heyday of newspapers (say, 1880 to 1950), the printing process was far more labor-intensive. As a result, reporters were a small fraction of the payroll, and keeping head count down on the reporting side wasn't top priority. Most newspapers had reporting, editing, composing, and printing all in the same building or adjacent buildings. The big part of the business was printing and distribution.
Today, printing plants are remote, have few people, and may be outsourced. Composing is automated. Editorial is mostly automated; text goes from reporter to printed page without much editing. So reporting is the big labor cost. And it's so easy to just tap into some feed and pump it out to the printing plant.
Blogging isn't helping. It's mostly punditry and self-publicity.
That's where information overload is hurting. Information wants to be free, but free information is self-serving.
god, or simply giant among men?
weinersmith
Yes, people can tell movies and television from real life, but repeated exposure really seems to have an effect. (Example: people think violent crime, and murder in particular, is much more common than in all but the poorest and least {cared-about-by-the-powerful} areas; why? ---because they've seen it, night after night, year after year, and the skill to avoid being influenced by this false evidence was not needed in the Serengeti.) It is certainly possible to over-influence people with words alone, but I can't shake the feeling that the reptile brain is privileged by The Image.
On the other hand, maybe people will be less influence by television and radio once they've gained the experience of making their own.
Old media wants to protect its market. An easy way to do this is to discourage old media consumers from trying out new media. "Online scammers - we'll show you how to avoid them! Tonight after weather and sports." is a common teaser these days only because it helps re-enforce that the Internet is a wild, dangerous place (except for the TV station's web site, of course). Better just keep the TV on and relax, they can't get you here.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
'The writer Douglas Adams observed how technology that existed when we were born seems normal, anything that is developed before we turn 35 is exciting, and whatever comes after that is treated with suspicion.'
The thing is technology that we are aware of that existed when we were born and is still in use when we get old enough to really think about it is proven. It works and gets the job done.
When new technology is developed before we turn 35 (or some other age, it started to happen for me when I was in my 20s) we see its possibilities and how it will change the world. We tend not to see its short comings, or how it solves a problem that nobody has. Additionally, while we are in that age, we have to spend as much time learning how to use existing technology as we do new technology, so they are equal footing.
After 35 (or whatever age this revelation occurs to the individual), you start to see how some new technology has the same sort of problems that some previous "new" technology had such that the previous "new" technology never worked out. Additionally, new technology means you have to learn a new way to do something where you had mastered the old way.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Scientists best, most productive years are those in their twenties. As someone that is 40, I understand that issue. I find I don't get "tweeting". It seems an insane activity to do or listen to. I am sure that there must be a reason for it, but I, a computer programmer, just don't understand why people want to tell the world their random, un-edited short thoughts. These are the things I am ashamed of. The better the idea the longer and more involved I wish to write about it. But I am 40, so I guess I am just too old to get it.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I love these old quotes that sound like they were made recently, but in fact are very old.
These are my favourites:
> Although they posses enough, and more than enough, still they yearn for more.
(Ovid (English Poet, 43 BC - 17 AD))
> I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless
beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and
impatient of restraint.
(Hesiod 800 - 720 BC)
> The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer rise
when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter
before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and
are tyrants over their teachers.
((allegedly) Socrates ca. 390 BC)
I'll have to RTFA since I've been reading Neil Postman's 1985 book "Amusing Ourselves to Death", which is a pre-WWW musing about how TV is changing public discourse in America.
Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
This is old news which we've all heard before. What is new about this? The NYC subway has a the "over 35 Year Old" quote on the walls in Barnes and Noble poster..
BTW - the better quote from that campaign is that "The limitations of a Man's view of the horizon is always mistaken for the scope of the Universe". Children under the age of 35 most often have a very small horizons :).
Ruben
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/amsterdam.html http://www.brooklyn-living.com
450 years of chasing those damn kids off our lawns.
But there are many companies/technologies that have been around or been developed in my lifetime that I am wary/suspicious of.
Google, MicroSoft, Apple, DRM, I should own, Social Networking.
Maybe my life would be different if I was not a /. lurker.
. .
'The writer Douglas Adams observed how technology that existed when we were born seems normal, anything that is developed before we turn 35 is exciting, and whatever comes after that is treated with suspicion.'" Looks like Logan's Run had the right idea.
So he chose to release his findings in the exact form of what was 'overloading people with information'? A printed book?
Boy I'd like to design that back cover:
I think this fits well with your signature:
Surgeon General's Warning: Reading this [book] may cause death
(s/[book]/signature/ for the signature as it really was at the time of my posting)
No extra credit will be awarded for guessing what technology allows us to know what he said on the subject...
Well, once I was reading a book I stumbled upon a song titled "The Printing Press is for porn", and Plato wasn't into that.
Could it have Project Gutenberg? ;-)
Guess it's been a nice run, but since I turn 35 in less than two months, if that Douglas Adams quote has any accuracy all the fun is just about over. Technology, it's been nice knowing you, but my days as a network administrator are over. It's nothing but shaking canes and offmalawns from here on out.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
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Uh oh... I turn 35 this year. I guess I only have a few months left to appreciate new technology before I start yelling at kids to get off my lawn.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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