On the one hand, we waste a lot of time walking around and traveling. But there’s something lost if we’re not going to the library and browsing through books, if we don’t have to chat with other people.
Predictor: Landweber, Lawrence
Prediction, in context:In a 1993 Cleveland Plain Dealer article about the potential negatives of the information superhighway, reporter Keith Epstein quotes computer scientist Lawrence Landweber. Epstein writes:”Will we still talk to each other? Science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov often favor themes about how technology isolates people from one another. Anybody who works in an office with an electronic message system can relate stories about miscommunication, snooping or public disclosure of some very private thoughts. Already, people are engaging in a form of ‘talk radio’ via computer, tapping out messages – both personal and public – to correspondents (and even imaginary lovers) halfway around the globe … ‘That’s one of the scary parts of the vision,’ observes computer scientist Lawrence Landweber. ‘On the one hand, we waste a lot of time walking around and traveling. But there’s something lost if we’re not going to the library and browsing through books, if we don’t have to chat with other people.'”
Biography:Lawrence Landweber, then at the University of Wisconsin, created THEORYNET, providing electronic mail to a group of more than 100 computer-science researchers using a locally developed e-mail system over TELENET in 1977. In 1979 he worked with the National Science Foundation to establish a U.S. research computer network that eventually became NSFNET. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: May 1, 1993
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Social Withdrawal/Addiction
Name of publication: Cleveland Plain Dealer
Title, headline, chapter name: Basic Questions Dog Electronic Road
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=e261cbbd27b08561468dd4c6cd0d92d6&_docnum=10&wchp=dGLbVzb-lSlAl&_md5=0740e7b68ceb68415217ca53c014bcc7
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney