Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
What conclusions can we draw from our study of the development of computers,
communication networks, and information storage and retrieval devices? First, revolu-
tionary discoveries are rare. Most innovations represent simply the next step in a long
staircase of evolutionary changes. Each inventor, or team of inventors, relies upon prior
work. In many cases different inventors come up with the same “original” idea at the
same time.
A second conclusion we can draw from these stories is that information technology
did not begin with the personal computer and the World Wide Web. Many other inven-
tions, including the telegraph, the telephone, the mechanical calculator, the radio, and
the television, led to significant social changes when they were adopted.
Finally, with the emergence of new technologies come new challenges that test our
values. Is it right to give your friends copies of songs you have purchased? Until music
was distributed in digital form and high-bandwidth connections to the Internet became
ubiquitous, this wasn't a significant issue. Is it right for a government to keep track of
every telephone call made by its citizens? That was only a hypothetical question until
the computerization of telephone exchanges and the creation of massive storage devices
made possible this kind of surveillance and record keeping.
The use of a new technology can have a significant impact on a society, but we
need to remember that, as societies and as individuals, we have a great deal of control
over how we choose to use a technology in order to maintain the values we hold to be
fundamentally important. As Seymour Papert observed:
So we are entering this computer future; but what will it be like? What sort of a
world will it be? There is no shortage of experts, futurists, and prophets who are
ready to tell us, but they don't agree. The Utopians promise us a new millennium, a
wonderful world in which the computer will solve all our problems. The computer
critics warn us of the dehumanizing effect of too much exposure to machinery, and
of disruption of employment in the workplace and the economy.
Who is right? Well, both are wrong—because they are asking the wrong ques-
tion. The question is not “What will the computer do to us?” The question is “What
will we make of the computer?” The point is not to predict the computer future. The
point is to make it. [48]
© Zits Partnership, King Features Syndicate
