With the coming of fiber-optics and faster computers, bandwidth will multiply, leading to the spread of multimedia technologies like digital video, audio and video teleconferencing. People who like to type at each other may again become like an endangered species as society sees the decline of textual literacy a second time.
Predictor: Markoff, John
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for The New York Times, John Markoff writes about computers and literacy: ”In the early days of the information revolution, writers, readers and book lovers of all sorts ominously predicted that the rise of technology would spell the death of literacy. Then they discovered the word processor, and the typewriter went the way of the quill pen. Maybe technology wasn’t so bad after all. When the literati discovered they could use modems to link their computers to networks and send their words flashing around the world, acceptance gave way to ecstasy. In a world increasingly dominated by MTV, Nickelodeon and CNN, people began to speak of a new literacy. Now the Internet, the network of networks that has become all the rage, is being hailed as a way to resurrect the epistolary culture that existed before the invention of the telegraph, telephone and television. With the convenience of e-mail will come megabyte correspondences as rich as those of Abelard and Heloise or Gustave Flaubert and George Sand. Internet discussion groups with names like ‘rec.arts.books’ will be like Gertrude Stein’s literary salon, except that anyone can join. Well, for a while anyway … all good renaissances must come to an end … Computer experts talk about what they call bandwidth – roughly speaking, how much information you can funnel through a line. With the coming of fiber-optics and faster computers, bandwidth will multiply, leading to the spread of multimedia technologies like digital video, audio and video teleconferencing. People who like to type at each other may again become like an endangered species as society sees the decline of textual literacy a second time.”
Biography:John Markoff wrote or co-wrote “The High Cost of High Tech,” “Cyber Punk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier” and “Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of America’s Most Wanted Computer Outlaw.” He also covered the computer industry and technology for the New York Times. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: March 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Bandwidth
Name of publication: New York Times
Title, headline, chapter name: The Rise and Swift Fall of Cyber Literacy
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Criticisms/fall_of_cyberliteracy.paper
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Stotler, Larry