The prediction, in brief:

From your library or home, you’ll be able to surf from one end of the World Wide Web to the other, but what you’ll get is a jumble of contextless data. In their relentless pursuit of discrete factoids, computers deconstruct conventional forms of information – books – into bytes. “Data isn’t information any more than 50 tons of cement is a skyscraper.”

Predictor: Lewis, Geoff

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 article for BusinessWeek, Geoff Lewis writes about Clifford Stoll, author of the book “Silicon Snake Oil,” a cautionary look at the impact of computers and the Internet. Lewis writes:”The Net, boosters maintain, can help with everything from educating the kids to restoring participatory democracy. It will slash health-care costs with telemedicine and turn businesses into superefficient virtual corporations. Disembodied cybercitizens will overcome the boundaries of poverty, inadequate schools, and race. ‘The key ingredient in their silicon snake oil is a technocratic belief that computers and networks will make a better society’ and cure social problems, writes Stoll. It’s not so, and the price of falling for this hype, he says, is staggering. At risk are vital institutions such as the neighborhood library and our entire education system. Rather than fixing our schools, Stoll asserts, we’re diverting money from things that could make a difference, such as more books and better teachers … As libraries race to replace card catalogs with databases and push aside reference books and periodicals to make room for computer terminals, they are courting disaster. Increasingly, only the material that’s available online will survive. From your library or home, you’ll be able to surf from one end of the World Wide Web to the other, but what you’ll get is a jumble of contextless data. In their relentless pursuit of discrete factoids, computers deconstruct conventional forms of information – books – into bytes. ‘Data isn’t information any more than 50 tons of cement is a skyscraper,’ Stoll insists.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: BusinessWeek

Title, headline, chapter name: Infobahn Warning Flags

Quote Type: Partial quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=61fa32d38e96cd350e22d7acc6ff59dc&_docnum=8&wchp=dGLbVtb-lSlAl&_md5=e1bb0f0910fed2e96803c9151ee6714b

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Tencer, Elizabeth L.