People are lazy. Ease of use is more important than content. Put something online – anything – and researchers will love it, whether or not it’s right. This is a driving force behind the move for online libraries and indeed the Internet itself.
Predictor: Mann, Thomas
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “Silicon Snake Oil,” writer Clifford Stoll shares his take on the Internet’s future implications, quoting Thomas Mann and George Zipf. Stoll writes:”There’s yet another reason why online libraries won’t work. Or maybe it’s a reason why they’ll thrive. Thomas Mann of the Library of Congress calls it the principle of least effort. According to him, most researchers, even serious scholars, will choose easily available information sources, even when they are low-quality. Researchers are usually satisfied with whatever can be easily found rather than expending more effort to dig up better sources. George Zipf, one of the pioneers in information science, put it a different way. Confronted with a variety of pathways to an answer, people choose the one that requires the least amount of work … In other words, people are lazy. Ease of use is more important than content. Put something online – anything – and researchers will love it, whether or not it’s right. This is a driving force behind the move for online libraries and indeed the Internet itself.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Libraries/Databases
Name of publication: Silicon Snake Oil
Title, headline, chapter name: Wherein the Author Considers the Future of the Library, the Myth of Free Information, and a Novel Way to Heat Bathwater
Quote Type: Paraphrase
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 185
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Tencer, Elizabeth L.