Interesting 1995 Newsweek Article

[BHeemsoth]

A friend sent this to me earlier today, it's a Newsweek editorial from 1995 in which one of their technical writers provides his insight on the future of the internet. I'd say he missed the boat by just a bit.

Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554/output/print

 

[olds]

Where is the "interesting" part located?

 

[crab]

That man was a visionary.

 

[Crono]

He wasn't wrong for the time. I don't think he was saying the internet would never become more organized or more useful. A lot of what he said is still applicable.

"What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where—in the holy names of Education and Progress—important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued."

 

[James Bond]

Oh man, this is great!

Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet—which there isn't—the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Oh man, this is great!

Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet—which there isn't—the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

Lol?

Anyways, he is right about the classroom part. No cdrom will ever replace a competent teacher and all that electronics do in the classroom is cause distractions and disrupt learning. Unless you are in a class that specifically requires a computer, you will learn more with your pencil and paper and a good professor lecturing on the board with chalk or dry erase and not powerpoint.