The prediction, in brief:

When you read a book, there’s a kind of a silence. And in that silence, in the interstices between the words themselves, your imagination has room to move, to create. On-line communication is filling those spaces. We are substituting a transitional, impermanent, ephemeral communication for a more permanent one.

Predictor: Slouka, Mark

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 HarperÕs Magazine article, four experts on the impact of modern computing and telecommunications technology debate the effects of such technology on modern society. The article includes comments by Mark Slouka, the author of “War of the Worlds: Cyberspace and the Hi-tech Assault on Reality,” published by Basic Books. Slouka says:”The kind of writing that’s done in the electronic media has a sort of evanescence to it. There’s an impermanence to it. A book, though, is something you can hold on to. It is a permanent thing. There is something else going on here, too. And that is what happens in the process of reading. When you read a book, there’s a kind of a silence. And in that silence, in the interstices between the words themselves, your imagination has room to move, to create. On-line communication is filling those spaces. We are substituting a transitional, impermanent, ephemeral communication for a more permanent one.Ó

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Communication

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Harper's Magazine

Title, headline, chapter name: What Are We Doing On-line? A Debate on the Social Consequences of Online Communications

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 35 - 46

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne