Nothing could be more misleading than the idea that computer technology introduced the age of information. The printing press began that age, and we have not been free of it since. But what started out as a liberating stream has turned into a deluge of chaos … Everything from telegraphy and photography in the 19th century to the silicon chip in the 20th has amplified the din of information, until matters have reached such proportions today that for the average person, information no longer has any relation to the solution of problems … Our defenses against information glut have broken down; our information immune system is inoperable. We don’t know how to filter it out; we don’t know how to reduce it; we don’t know to use it.
Predictor: Postman, Neil
Prediction, in context:In an Oct. 11, 1990, speech to the German Informatics Society in Stuttgart, social commentator and author Neil Postman says: ”There was a time when information was a resource that helped human beings to solve specific and urgent problems of their environment … This began to change, as everyone knows, in the late 15th century when a goldsmith named Gutenberg … created what we now call an information explosion. Forty years after the invention of the press, there were printing machines in 110 cities in six different countries; 50 years after, more than 8 million books had been printed, almost all of them filled with information that had previously not been available to the average person. Nothing could be more misleading than the idea that computer technology introduced the age of information. The printing press began that age, and we have not been free of it since. But what started out as a liberating stream has turned into a deluge of chaos. If I may take my own country as an example, here is what we are faced with: In America, there are 260,000 billboards; 11,520 newspapers; 11,556 periodicals; 27,000 video outlets for renting tapes; 362 million tv sets; and over 400 million radios. There are 40,000 new book titles published every year (300,000 worldwide) and every day in America 41 million photographs are taken, and just for the record, over 60 billion pieces of advertising junk mail come into our mail boxes every year. Everything from telegraphy and photography in the 19th century to the silicon chip in the 20th has amplified the din of information, until matters have reached such proportions today that for the average person, information no longer has any relation to the solution of problems … We are glutted with information, drowning in information, have no control over it, don’t know what to do with it … As a consequence, our defenses against information glut have broken down; our information immune system is inoperable. We don’t know how to filter it out; we don’t know how to reduce it; we don’t know to use it. We suffer from a kind of cultural AIDS.”
Biography:Neil Postman was a professor at NYU and prolific writer and speaker on the negative impacts of technology and the media on society. He wrote the book “Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology” (1992). (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: October 11, 1990
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Information Overload
Name of publication: Speech to the German Informatics Society
Title, headline, chapter name: Informing Ourselves to Death
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
www.williams.edu/HistSci/curriculum/101/informing.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney