Out of this backlash comes a warning to parents that their children will “cocoon” and metamorphose into social invalids. Experience tells us the opposite. So far, evidence gathered by those using the Net as a teaching tool indicates that kids who go online gain social skills rather than lose them … Take all the books in the world, and they won’t offer the real-time global experience a kid can get on the Net: here a child becomes the driver of the intellectual vehicle, not the passenger.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:For a 1995 column for Wired magazine, Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT’s Media Lab, writes:”Any significant social phenomenon creates a backlash. The Net is no exception. It is odd, however, that the loudest complaints are shouts of ‘Get a life!’ – suggesting that online living will dehumanize us, insulate us, and create a world of people who won’t smell flowers, watch sunsets, or engage in face-to-face experiences. Out of this backlash comes a warning to parents that their children will ‘cocoon’ and metamorphose into social invalids. Experience tells us the opposite. So far, evidence gathered by those using the Net as a teaching tool indicates that kids who go online gain social skills rather than lose them. Since the distance between Athens, Georgia, and Athens, Greece, is just a mouse click away, children attain a new kind of worldliness. Young people on the Net today will inevitably experience some of the sophistication of Europe. In earlier days, only children from elite families could afford to interact with European culture during their summer vacations abroad … Take all the books in the world, and they won’t offer the real-time global experience a kid can get on the Net: here a child becomes the driver of the intellectual vehicle, not the passenger.”
Biography:Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and a popular speaker and writer about technologies of the future, wrote one of the 1990s’ best-selling books about the new future of communications, “Being Digital.” (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Get a Life? Isn’t it Odd How Parents Grieve if Their Child Spends Six Hours a Day on the Net but Delight if Those Same Hours Are Spent Reading Books?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.09/negroponte_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney