Tech Reporting Is More Negative Now Than in the Past (betanews.com)

Wayne Williams, writing for BetaNews: A new study finds that tech reporting is generally more pessimistic now than in the past, and for two very different reasons. The new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), and based on textual analysis of 250 articles from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post from 1986 to 2013, highlights how the tone of tech reporting has shifted in the past 20 years. In general, the ITIF found that in the 1980s and 1990s, coverage of technology was largely positive, but this changed from the mid-1990s to 2013, when more negative reports covering the downside of technology, its failure to live up to its promises, and potential ill effects, started to appear. The ITIF attributes this shift to two main causes, the first being that "there has been a significant increase in the number of civil-society organizations and attention-seeking scholars focused on painting a threatening picture of technology," and second, and perhaps most pertinent, "news organizations are under increased financial pressure, and as a result, reporters may have less time and fewer resources to dig deep into technology issues."

Comments

The magic is dead.

[thegreatbob]

Back then, things probably seemed novel and exciting to a broader array of people. These days, I get the feeling that the people who were once excited about those things (myself included) now, often, see them as little more than faster and more complicated versions of the things they replaced. Another issue is people's preconceived notions about how the latest and greatest tech ought to be; I suspect that they feel let down by the slow progress towards the things they believe to be the way of the future. If these things are true, it's not surprising that people in all circles would tend to have a pessimistic outlook on technology.

Re:The magic is dead.

[MightyMartian]

Computing is pretty much ubiquitous nowadays. When I first got into computing back in grade school around 1981-82, computers were just this incredibly awesome thing. There was a pioneering spirit to the home computing world. I remember taking my crappy little Radio Shack computer to local meetups, and you'd have everyone from ten year olds like myself to grizzled old guys (who could actually afford cool peripherals like disk drives and the like). That persisted to some extent until the early 1990s, with the earliest versions of Linux like the original Slackware release being the swan song of an age of computing that had persisted since the mid-70s. Once the Internet really overtook the old BBS culture, that was the final nail. I blame it all on AOL!

I can remember pouring through Byte magazine back in the mid-80s and just salivating over the idea of having a modem or a double-sided floppy drive. It was just a very optimistic age. I found an old box of computer magazines from the era, and still smiled at the three page BASIC program listing for some sort of text adventure game, remembering how I built my first one based on a how-to book I'd ordered from an advertisement in the back. Good times.

Re:The magic is dead.

[Kjella]

Computing is pretty much ubiquitous nowadays. When I first got into computing back in grade school around 1981-82, computers were just this incredibly awesome thing.

And no matter how fast technology goes there's a diminishing return, like the difference between CGA, EGA and VGA is never coming back no matter how much people talk about 4K, 10 bit, HDR, Rec. 2020 and so on. Doubling from 1MB to 2MB meant more than 1GB to 2GB. The last time I was genuinely floored by new hardware was in 2002 with Morrowind when I installed a new GPU with hardware T&L. Suddenly the grass looked like grass, the sea looked like sea, things started to have realistic textures and shadows and whatnot. Sure in sum we've come far since then, but never in huge leaps like that. That and modem -> DSL was also huge, but of course not as huge as getting Internet in the first place.

Thete is a huge difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Between something 'negative', as in bias, and reporting facts that are not pleasant. Let's be honest: a lot if tech companies these days are engaged in ridiculous amounts of hyperbole, if not flat out lies about their endeavors and their potential, and engage in practices that are so unethical they make the head spin. Something millennials really need to absorb: just because the truth of a situation is uncomfortable does not mean you bury it. You can't change a situation by running away from it or trying to obliterate knowledge of it. Grow up.