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.'"
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.
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.
Yeah, and you probably still think digital watches were a good idea...
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.
I Can't imagine a technology that I would ever be suspicious of though, but then again I'm a nerd.
Really?
Nothing at all? I'm only 21 and I'm already suspicious of half the patent filings that get reported on here.
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"
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.
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.
'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