Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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.
So... If you go to hospital, you might be safer with a stoned surgeon, than one who's been up for 36 hours? Strange, the things we make illegal, and the things we don't.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
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.