I’ve heard that e-mail and networks will make our workplace more efficient and let us get more work done every day. Like the paperless office, I feel this is a falsehood. E-mail takes time to read, even when it’s junk e-mail. Other network services, like net news, can eat hours from each workday. And the fast response of computers and networks causes us to repeatedly refine what once might have been good enough. Since it’s so easy to revise documents, well, we go ahead and revise them.
Predictor: Stoll, Clifford
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “Silicon Snake Oil,” writer Clifford Stoll shares his take on the Internet’s future implications:”I’ve heard that e-mail and networks will make our workplace more efficient and let us get more work done every day. Like the paperless office, I feel this is a falsehood. E-mail takes time to read, even when it’s junk e-mail. Other network services, like net news, can eat hours from each workday. And the fast response of computers and networks causes us to repeatedly refine what once might have been good enough. Since it’s so easy to revise documents, well, we go ahead and revise them.”
Biography:Clifford Stoll was an astrophysicist who also wrote the influential books “Silicon Snake Oil” (1995) and “The Cuckoo’s Egg.” A long-time network user, Stoll made “Silicon Snake Oil” his platform for finding fault with the Internet hype of the early 1990s. He pointed out the pitfalls of a completely networked society and offered arguments in opposition to the hype. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Silicon Snake Oil
Title, headline, chapter name: An Amalgam of Popular Fictions About the Internet, Including Brief Trips to China and The City of No Illusions
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 30
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney