To what extent has computer technology been an advantage to the masses of people? … These people have had their private matters made more accessible to powerful institutions. They are more easily tracked and controlled; they are subjected to more examinations and are increasingly mystified by the decisions made about them. They are more often reduced to mere numerial objects. They are being buried by junk mail. They are easy targets for advertising agencies and political organizations. The schools teach their children to operate computerized systems instead of teaching things that are more valuable to children … It is to be expected that the winners … will encourage the losers to be enthusiastic about computer technology … they tell them that their lives will be conducted more efficiently, discreetly neglecting to say from whose point of view or what might be the costs of such efficiency.
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: ”A new technology tends to favor some groups of people and harms other groups … Technological change, in other words, always results in winners and losers. In the case of computer technology, there can be no disputing that the computer has increased the power of large-scale organizations like military establishments or airline companies or banks or tax-collecting agencies. And it is equally clear that the computer is now indispensable to high-level researchers in physics and other natural sciences. But to what extent has computer technology been an advantage to the masses of people? To steel workers, vegetable store owners, teachers, automobile mechanics, musicians, bakers, brick layers, dentists and most of the rest of us whose lives the computer now intrudes? These people have had their private matters made more accessible to powerful institutions. They are more easily tracked and controlled; they are subjected to more examinations and are increasingly mystified by the decisions made about them. They are more often reduced to mere numerial objects. They are being buried by junk mail. They are easy targets for advertising agencies and political organizations. The schools teach their children to operate computerized systems instead of teaching things that are more valuable to children … It is to be expected that the winners … will encourage the losers to be enthusiastic about computer technology … they tell them that their lives will be conducted more efficiently, discreetly neglecting to say from whose point of view or what might be the costs of such efficiency.”
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: General
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