ISSUES IN INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION

ISSUES IN INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION:
THE IMPACT OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES ON SOCIETY

Some Final Predictions:From Sure-fire Bets...to...When Pigs Fly

by Dr. Edward J. Forrest, & Dr. Michael Chamberlain, & Eric Chambers

Copyright © 1996 Edward J. Forrest. All Rights Reserved.

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Table of Contents

Information/On-line, Anytime, On-Anything

For Home Shopping or Shopping for Homes

Interactive Entertainment vs. Invasion of Privacy

Predictions in Education

In Conclusion

Objectives
Not all innovations are successful and few predictions become fact. Thus, in this final chapter, our look at tomorrow's world of interactive cyberspace
can be regarded as equal parts learned pronostication and wishful thinking.
Albeit, after reading this chapter (and this book) the reader should be able to more readily envision how the emerging interactive communication technologies could/should impact on our lifestyles, mediastyles and workstyles by 2010.

Orienting Questions

What are some of the key predictions regarding the emerging interactive technologies impact on our everday activities..... such as communicating with family, friends and colleques? .....shopping, banking, traveling, learning....? How are our overall information and entertainment consumption patterns going to be altered?

Key terms:

Personal Digital Assistants (PDA's)
Intelligent Agents (knowbots)
Global Positioning System (GPS)
Cybercash
Business Nets
Virtual Trade Show
Digital Videodisc (DVD)
Theory Of Uniform Influences & The Magic Bullet

Before predicting our lifestyle, mediastyle and workstyle in the near and ultimate future, it is a good idea to begin with an examination of where we are at today. Accordingly, some baseline statistics are in order. A recent (September 1994) Gallup survey conducted for Interactive Age registered the following:

PERCENT OF ADULTS IN U.S. THAT OWN OR USE REGULARLY NOW:
(cf. Interactive Age , September 26, 1994, pg.102)___________________

* CABLE TV....................................................... 70.0%
* HOME COMPUTER......................................... 33.6%
* CD-ROM........................................................... 23.9%
* PAY-PER-VIEW CABLE MOVIES.............. 11.5%
* ONLINE SERVICES........................................ 6.3%
* INTERNET SERVICES................................... 7.4%
* HOME SHOPPING............................................ 14.4%

Now, in terms of our learned (and/or wishful) prediction, it it believed that were Gallup & Interactive Age to conduct this same survey in eight years, every variable would register 70% plus. Moreover, the list of communication technologies that people own and are using on a regular basis will include Personal Digital Assistants (PDA's), intelligent agents (knowbots) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS).

PDA's:
Indeed, a driving force behind most research and development in the communications field today is mobility. Smaller, lighter, multifunctional devices--and programs to run them-- are pouring on the market, with names like Envoy, Magic Link, Marco, Simon and Zoomer. Most of these devices combine two basic technologies of the information age: computing and telephony-- a union that promises more than the sum of its parts.
The idea is to stuff as much information and as many communication tools as possible into a small package-- called a personal digital assistant....weighing less than 2lbs.'s... operate off a regular phone line or cellular connection and send and recieve faxes, voice mail or e-mail...keep appointment schedules, expense ledgers, addresses and phone numbers as well as large digitized documents.
( An increasing stream of techno-driven products has already begun to change the way people live and work, by Barrett Seaman, Time Inc. Transmitted: 95-03-13, cf. America Online.)

PDA's, along with a myriad of other appliances and devices will be controlled via voice recognition. Existing discrete utterance systems like Dragon, Kurzweil and IBM Speech Server, which force the user to pause for a minimum of a sixth of a second between words, will be replaced over the next decade by continuous speech, speaker independent systems, which will allow users to access databases by voice, control all manner of household devices...even navigate in the car. High-vocabulary systems for voice dictation will continue to improve; the secretary's lot will not be a happy one (in fact, he or she had better start looking for a new job soon).

Intelligent agents, knowledge robots - "knowbots" - are one of the most promising areas, although today, the hype outpaces reality. Nevertheless, researchers at M.I.T. and Bolt, Beranek and Newman in Cambridge, Massachusetts, confidently predict that we will be using knowbots to retrieve information when we want it, where we want it (desktop, laptop, TV...or wrist computer). M.A.I.D. for Windows, a new research retrieval product launched in 1995 by Marketing and Information Display Ltd., under the profound name offers "Information Alerts", allowing the user to preprogram areas of interest which the system retrieves for the person at regular intervals again determined by the user. The Dow Jones Business Retrieval System offers a similar service, if less impressive graphical user interface. Both systems work by scanning their huge data banks for new mentions of the topics required, a quasi intelligent system but still short of the kind of HAL-like computer heralded in Stanley Kubrick's science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey (Clarke, 1968).

The satellite based Global Positioning System, developed by the Pentagon is now in the public domain.
Private-boat owners have been using GPS to fix their positions atsea for the past decade. Now, GPS is avaiable in U.S. autos. As of last summer, Oldsmobile buyers could opt for GPS receivers, with accompanying digitized road maps, built right into their dashboards. A motorist lost in San Francisco can tap into GPS and get an instant position on the diditized map, accurate to the length of a minivan. At it's current $1,995 price, GPS is still an expensive option, but... as prices eventually come down, these locators could become common features in cars. ( An increasing stream of techno- driven products has already begun to change the way people live and work, by Barrett Seaman, Time Inc. Transmitted: 95-03-13, cf. America Online.)

When it comes to making "sure-fire" predictions regarding the ultimate success of any given technology, the most critical consideration is the overall cost vs. benefit analysis. Calculting the relative ratio between how much the technology costs (in terms of personal time and money) to acquire and operate, versus how much it returns on one's investment in terms of personal gratification. GPS makes one's position on earth easier to measure. Pay-per-view and video-on-demand should bring one more pleasure. If the technology will save one time, make one richer, make it faster, finer--build it and they will buy.
By applying technology to people's everday needs, it epitomizes what Yale University computer scientist David Gelertner calls "the true potential of the information superhighway: making everyday life for most people somewhat easier and less irritating."
...The heart of the cyberrevolution remains...the personal computer. Cheaper, faster, more versatile and easier to use PC's are infiltrating the social faric. Software like Mosiac and Netscape has made navigating the Internet a lot less daunting for average citizens, who are rushing to buy modems and sign up for online services.( An increasing stream of techno-driven products has already begun to change the way people live and work, by Barrett Seaman, Time Inc. Transmitted: 95-03-13, cf. America Online.)

Once the rush has subsided, every house that today has a phone and TV, will have available interactive services to go with their information & entertainment appliances. The difference in lifestyle between the average household occupant today and one of next decade, may be as distinct as the Flintstones and the Jetsons.

Information/On-line, Anytime, On-Anything

On-line newspapers and magazines, tailored to your interest, will update themselves frequently, and read to you while you drive to work. Philip Dionisi (1993, August 8). There's a mind-boggling electronic revolution heading for your living room. The Tallahassee Democrat p.8A.

Today few people have the time to read through an entire newspaper or magazine in order to find the topics that are of interest to them. The specialization and format of cable stations, Headline News and CNN, have already moved society in this direction. There has also been a proliferation of services (Prodigy, CompuServe, Dow Jones News Retrieval etc.) which have bolstered use of on-line information service subscriptions.

The technological revolutions taking place will be at their most fundamental in the media - . Yet those same media are of themselves very conservative and thus the pace of change will lag behind the technologies they can adopt. For example, the ability to produce 500+ television channels via digital satellite transmission has existed since 1990 but the prospect of such arrays on a massive scale will not take place until after the millennium. Of course, cost is a major factor in dictating this slow diffusion; availability of programming is another, but one should also not underestimate the "drag" that media owners themselves place on the new media.

The Internet is another good example. In 1995 estimates put the number of Internet users at over 30 million (although this was probably exaggerated and involved considerable double counting). However, as Negroponte (1995) pointed out in being digital:

The population of the Internet itself is now increasing a 10 per cent per month. If this rate of growth were to continue (quite impossibly), the total number of Internet users would exceed the population of the world by 2003." (Negroponte, 1995, pp. 5-6).

Given this exponential growth one would expect the Net itself to be crowded with media owners hawking their wares. Yet newspapers and magazines have been slow to react. In 1995 the number of newspapers and magazines with World Wide Web sites were still relatively small and could be counted in their hundreds rather than thousands and only one magazine, Hot Wired, - itself an offshoot of the printed Wired magazine - was confidently cited as "making any money". (In 1995 Hot Wired charged its advertisers $30,000 for a two-week slot with 28 advertising slots available. According to one of its founders, it was profitable from day one.) Although Business Week, Time, The New York times, San Jose Mercury, Los Angeles Times, and many other prominent names could be listed as having WWW sites or placements on consumer on-line services, such as CompuServe, American On-line and Prodigy, they have not proved the license to print money that media owners contemplated. Lack of secure charging mechanisms and the free nature of the Net (where users were routinely used to getting everything for free) were largely to blame. These antecedents led to one remark (unattributed): "The Internet is like teenage sex. Everybody thinks everybody else is doing it, everybody thinks everybody else is doing it more than they are, and those that are doing it aren't doing it all that well."

Will this rate of newspaper/magazine innovation change? Well, yes, but not at the same exponential rate that many enthusiasts decree. The pundits are truly ahead of themselves. Owners of the printed word magazines and newspapers - will experiment with various charging mechanisms (subscriptions, pay-per-read, advertising, sponsorship, transactional - a commission on products and/or services sold) before committing themselves whole-heatedly to on-line.

Having said that the big battalions are beginning to crack: media magnate Repeat Murdoch said in an interview in May, 1995, that all his newspapers would be on-line within two years although he continued to remain skeptical about making money from such a move. (Snoddy, 1995). In the same interview, Murdoch said he contemplated purchasing a satellite to beam digital television programs across Europe. He cited exorbitant charges by European satellite owners for transponder use (compared to the US) but his remarks were also spurred by a government green paper in the UK changing the rules on cross- media ownership and constraining Murdoch's ability to expand either his newspaper on terrestrial television interests in Britain. (Under the proposals, newspapers with a 20% share of the national newspaper market would be prevented from owning significant shares in terrestrial channels - Rupert Murdoch's newspaper interests in the UK in 1995 amounted to 37% of all national newspaper titles and he is a 40% shareholder in BSkyB, the satellite channel).

Advances in Internet security such as Netscape Secure, which in 1995 looked as if it could become the standard for guaranteeing secure financial transactions (such as credit cards), has also prompted a flurry of activity. At the time of writing in the UK, The Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Financial Times, Sunday Times and Observer all have prototype electronic sites on the Net and the Daily Mail and London Evening Standard were transmitting pages via Acrobat packaged data forms to Paris (albeit so that their proprietor, Viscount Rothermere, could read his titles at his Paris residence). In the US eight newspaper groups, including Gannet, Times Mirror, Knight-Ridder, The Washington Post, and Hearst, announced an alliance to supply local news over the Internet (where they can control both the content and the pricing mechanism and are not at the mercy of third-party consumer on-line services for carriage).

So the Press stampede is beginning...but do not overestimate it. The percentage of editorial resource dedicated to electronic publishing is relatively small and the printed media have yet to learn how to migrate to bespoke electronic form. Obsession with retaining the "look'n feel" of print titles will hamper their migration. The demand to retain "branding" is being confused with understanding of what works (and what doesn't) in electronic form. McLuhan (1964) was right to point out mechanamorphism- that the medium changes the message - but most print journalists have yet to learn the differing skills of e-mail, never mind the right bits and bytes for electronic transfer.

As this mega-digital world unfolds, it is worth elaborating on two points. Firstly, as the world is getting smaller - in terms of access/availability, paradoxically the need for local, focused information will become paramount. The consumer's insatiable thirst for interactivity will demand that he/she wants the infotainment message prioritized, particularized for him/her...not for the "mass" market. Bye, bye mass communication, hello interactive, one-on-one communication. But it will not happen overnight - vested interests in mass communication will make sure of that...but change will happen. The second point concerns the seemingly endless debate on whether the delivery vehicle for information will be the PC platform (a combination or telecommunication and computers) or the television (an alliance of computer, telecommunication and television - mainly cable and satellite-interests). The answer is it will be BOTH; in business, multimedia information will be effected via the PC, which has migrated to an all singing, all-dancing, bells & whistles device with everything from 30 frames-per-second confravision to thermal colour printing. Computer penetration will continue to grow in the home but the money in the middle to long run is on the television set. It just won't be a TV set any more; it will be a computer.

Information services, not software applications, will be the primary function of personal computers. Snider, J., & Ziporyn, T.(1992). Future Shop. St. Martin's Press, New York.

Information technology hardware is not where computer manufacturers profit. The 'powers that be' had better take heed and relearn the lessons taught in the PC wars and the battles of the U-Matic and Betamax machines. Software has been the "bread-and-butter" personal computing technology, and without a standardized format, software distribution has a less than optimal opportunity to flourish. As software developers battle, they may be ousted by the wide spread subscription to on-line services. Continuous updating and interactive capabilities may prove to be more attractive than attempting to keep your PC loaded with current software. Since the ability to down-load information from on-line databases to word processing programs exists, PC's could serve as information collection stations as well as performing the various and sundry other functions of the well-wired "electronic cottage." As it is, " the modern, well-wired home already offers its occupants a head-spinning array ofv computer-borne activities....Children use CD-ROMS to play games...Teenagers flock to on-line services not only to "chat" but also to reach primary schoolwork sources, such as images of original works of art, documents prepared by experts, even possible exchanges of E-mail with the experts themselves. Adults have access to instant stock-market quotes, to on-line versions of magazines....and to a host of "clubs" where people gather to discuss astronomy, genealogy or bicycling." (cf. Barrett, op. cit.)
And when it comes to shopping --be it for the staples of life (food, shelter, clothes, and even sex) or any other imaginable item (from autos to zodiac readings)-- interactive communication technologies are rapidly moving to the forefront as the primary conduit for commerce.

For Home Shopping or Shopping for Homes:

*Using online programs and the Internet's increasingly crowed World Wide Web, one can find not just information about products and services but help in bringing the transactions to a conclusion as well. Real estate agents are discovering online as an efficient way to sell properties. The Homes and Land Publishing Corp.'s website lists Homes nationwide-- by state, then bt city....The Austin Real Estate Connection in Texas gives information on the full range of home-buying services, from photographs of the houses to the names of builders and mortgage lenders, lawyers and title companies. Using a search program, prospective buyers can enter preferences, such as price range, style, school district and number of bedrooms, and thus narrow the field to homes that meet those criteria.( An increasing stream of techno-driven products has already begun to change the way people live and work, by Barrett Seaman, Time Inc. Transmitted: 95-03-13, cf. America Online.)

*Interactive capabilities and the use of an advanced remote control, will enable consumers to browse in a electronic mall and see clothes modeled in the colors and settings one prefers. Philip Dionisi (1993, August 8). "There's a mind-boggling electronic revolution heading for your living room." The Tallahassee Democrat p.8A.

*A new on-line store on the internet offers shopping...you can order whatever you want and the food is actually cheaper than the the grocery store....The store is the brainchild of two MIT graduates, Chon Vo and Alex Sherstinsky. The two buy the goods from their own suppliers and sell them at a small markup.
Users can:
* Browse and choose, for example, between bananas designated "ripe," near ripe" or "green"
* Place their items in a basket and keep a running tally of theeir bill.
* Point and click on the entry "broccoli" and not only get nutitional information about broccoli but also reciepes containing the vegtable.
* Register their likes or dislikes... i.e. only organic veggies...milk only in cardboard containers
Vo delivers the orders by van, using a computer program to map out the most effiecint route.
( "Grocery checkout line soon may be just keystrokes away," by Glen Johnson - The Associated Press, Tallahasee Democrat, (July 7,1995, page 1A)

One will be able to pay bills and shop from home by inserting a bank card into the TV or phone. Plus, 'smart cards' could contain everything from one's bank balance to medical or employment records. Philip Dionisi (1993, August 8). There's a mind-boggling electronic revolution heading for your living room. The Tallahassee Democrat p.8A.

In his book, The Global Village, Marshall McLuhan provides a chilling hypothetical account of a burglar entering your hotel room as you lay asleep. She does not disturb you, or take anything. However, she has managed to write down your "smart card" number, and access it from various on-line locations. Today, that would mean a loss of money; tomorrow, it will mean a loss of identity. In contemporary society, the effects of Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT's) have become widespread. From the grocery store to the mall, it is becoming more difficult to use traditional forms of currency, bringing us closer to the cashless society. According to McLuhan (1989), the proliferation of ETF's and "Cybercash" will reduce public social desirability to "creditworthiness".

Snider & Ziporyn (1992) maintain that through improved telecommunications, shopping from the home will increase substantially. Subsequently, there will be a dramatic decrease of in-store selling. Retail sales for particular goods will drastically decrease as a result of consumers becoming informed buyers. The stores being targeted for extinction are specialty stores (electronics, sporting goods, toys, travel, etc.) which provide consumers with information they could not previously attain (with relative ease) and do not require a significant degree of customization. The customer will no longer rely on the salesperson at Radio Shack for information about his cordless phone. He will be able to obtain this information from his interactive liaison. However convenient and fantastic this may be, it does not mean that Saturday afternoon shopping will become an activity only for the computerless. Toffler (1980) reiterates that, by no means, will traditional shopping become extinct. It is important to remember that-- a lone baboon is a dead baboon-- as gregarious beings, there are crucial social aspects to many of our behaviors. People like to go shopping to get away from the kids, to "hang out" with friends, or to make new acquaintances. And for some, there will never be an electronic substitute for squeezing the Charmin at the supermarket or trying on clothes at Bloomingdales.
Indeed, some interactive information services-- like U S WEST's multimediated yellow pages (originally termed its entertainment Express service) -- are designed to "get the people out." As stated by Sol Trujillo, president of U S WEST Marketing Resources..." This is not couch-potato stuff"...." With the click of a remote, viewers can survey the local restaurant scene, read reviews, peruse the menus and even reserve a table for four at 8. Or they can check local movie theaters-- not only for what's playing and when but for what rating the film comes carries, what the critics are saying and previews of films. Tickets can be bought in advance through a cerdit-card system." (cf. Barrett, op. cit.)

Moreover, Home Shopping--Not Just For Consumers Anymore....
Closed user business groups will become commonplace allowing business to buy products and services over their secure Business Nets via cable, satellite or microwave technology to their laptops, desktops or to their home TV. In addition,the Virtual Trade Show will become a reality with the visitor not even having to attend; "confravision" will finally have come of age, cyberspace visitors will be able to pre-book appointments for real-time conversation with exhibitors...take part in panels at seminars. Will it be a substitute for the "real" thing? Not entirely. But it will be a lot cheaper and a lot less time-consuming. Visitors to trade shows may elect to attend every other year. Sell airline stocks now! Paradoxically, the shows themselves may become bigger, more regular events because of the availability of electronic bandwidth. In exhibitions and trade shows we will see phenomenal growth in the use of CD-ROM technology. Why carry away two plastic bags full of "stuff" you'll never read when you can take away one disc with 250,000 pages of information, plus full motion video and audio, which can be passed/duplicated for use back at the office (or wherever you telecommute from)? Increasingly, trade shows will be linked to Internet sites where you can preview or browse 365 days a year at any time of day or night. Using emerging Digital Videodisc (DVD) technology "visitors" to these sites will be able to download updated information (prices, brochures, catalogs, interviews with 'satisfied' product users - testimonials, technical support, etc.) via ever- increasing bandwidth (which will also become increasingly cheaper to use). The directory/catalog market will never be the same again. Vast increases in storage (through CD-ROM) will be augmented by CD-RAM technology which will allow users to write to addressable fields. Your directory need never be out of date (although, no doubt, you'll be charged for the updates).
Never out of date, never out of touch and never out of memory-- on the surface would seem to be a most desirable state of affairs. The new interactive communication technologies seem to offer and almost limitless array of capacities and capabilities. To date, the changes wrought by all this technology on our information & entertainment consumption patterns has been more experienced than understood. Interactive communication while bringing us new opportunities and services also brings with it new concerns. To wit:

Interactive Entertainment vs. Invasion of Privacy
You'll be able to play along with quiz shows, choose among stories (level of detail) on news programs and advertising, shape the plots of dramas, and choose instantly among thousands of movies and old TV shows. You may be able to rate each show you watch to help your TV prepare a personalized TV Guide for you. In short, the mass media is heading for de-massification. Philip Dionisi (1993, August 8). There's a mind-boggling electronic revolution heading for your living room. The Tallahassee Democrat p.8A.

In 1977 Warner-Amex installed two-way cablevision in Columbus, Ohio and offered it as an option along with a basic cable television. A combination of technical and privacy issues lead to its quick demise.
Two-way TV raises issues of "big brother" and the intrusion of privacy regarding the collection of information for data banks, that subscribers may wish to keep private ( i.e. the downloading of pornographic movies, to name but one). With the capability of monitoring every program viewed and transaction processed it will be possible to create ever more unique and massive databases and marketing dossiers. According to Quittner (1993):

"The teleputer you watch will be watching back: Interactive devices collect information about exactly what you buy, watch, read, eat, or do, every time you use them, allowing companies to compile a remarkably detailed portrait of your life (p. 8a)."

In perspective, predictions about uses and effects of future technologies often neglect several critical issues, most importantly socio-behavioral patterns and unintended applications. It should also be reemphasized that interactive technology, like any technology, is nothing more than array of neutral instruments. Technologies don't set out to facilitate social change, but more often than not, it is a residual effect. Kiesler (1986) identifies three orders of effect characteristic of technology: First order effect is what the technology is intended or planned to do. (The telephone was intended to improve business communication). The second order effect is a transient effect. (The unintended effect of the telephone was a lack of privacy, i.e. solicitors). The third order effects, (the social effects of the telephone, has been a new mode of interpersonal interaction and long-distance relationships).

As the mass media demassifies, scholars and scientists will need to develop theories to aid in understanding the social influences that result as a repercussion of interactive communication. In the passing age of mass media, individuals were constantly bombarded with media representations of a complex physical and social world. It was through these representations that one's narrow personal surroundings were expanded to construct social meaning (Defleur and Ball-Rokeach 1989). Case in point: The mass media constructed social or shared meaning for numerous public and private agendas. For example, "Just Say No!" is associated with particular agenda within society. What constructs the social meaning is mass consumption of the message.
As we speculate and analyze media trends, there is an obvious movement towards de-massification of the mass media, through specialization. There are several channels currently offered by local cable companies with specialized content (all sports, all music, all shopping, and all comedy). Gone are the days of watching the "Big 3" (ABC, CBS, NBC), passively viewing as network programmers "take you" from The Wide World of Sports to Lawrence Welk. The individual has already taken steps in actively seeking content in which he/she is interested. The implications in terms of the construction of social meanings is a return to homogeneous personal surroundings.
Once considered the dark-house of communication theory, an oversimplified stimulus-response method, The Theory of Uniform Influences, also known as the "magic bullet", could make its way back on top as 'the' theory of "demassified" communication. Contemporary theorists echo current perspectives in stating:

"A communication message does not have the same effect on everyone. Its effect on anyone is dependent on a number of things, including personality characteristics, various aspects of the situation and the context." Severin and Tankard (1988) Communication Theories 3rd ed.,p 106

The greatest argument against the magic bullet theory was founded in social relationships. If the future offers media isolation through personalized information consumption, it is conceivable that persuasive media messages may be tailored to a person's likes, dislikes, fears, and prejudices. Databases constructing psychographic profiles based upon personalized interactive-media dossiers will provide an efficient and effective means for advertisers and political groups, to "hit" their target more accurately than ever. Being active seekers of this information will make individuals very susceptible to media messages. Meanwhile, reduced viewing variety (by choice) will provide less exposure to contradictory information.

The consequences of reduced socialization and increased customization that that demassified- interactive entertainment may occasion can also impact the nature and content of formal education in the near future as well. As predicted over thirty years ago by Marshall McLuhan: "In education the conventional divison of the curriculum into subjects is already as outdated as the medieval trivium and quadrivium after the Renaissance. Any subject taken in depth at once relates to other subjects. Continued in their present patterns of fragmented unrelation, our school curricula will insure a citizenry unable to understand the cybernated world in which they live."
( Understanding Media, op.cit., p.347)

PREDICTIONS IN EDUCATION

The automated university will be here by the year 2000. Virtually all students will have computers at home on which they could run instructional software and be linked to other students and teachers as well as to libraries. Smith, G., & Debenham, J. (1993). Automating University Teaching by the year 2000. T.H.E. Journal p.71.

...if it does not adapt, the university will disappear as the oral schools did when they did not create a synthesis with the Gutenberg technology.... Universities are primarily linear/verbal places. We have course syllabi, outlines, reading lists, and prerequisites. Yet, many of our students are post-MTV, channel-surfing, videogame players, not used to listening or reading for an hour, not used to knowing where they are in the outline, or even if there is an outline. Media like the Net, hypertext, and the Web, may allow us to evolve a style of instruction better matched to the cognitive style of these students, just as the oral schoolman might have adopted to print. ( "McLuhan Meets the Net" by Larry Press, Communications, July, 1995/Volume 38, Number 7, pg.18)

The sixties brought us teaching machines, the 'promise' of individualized instruction through self-paced workbooks, and branching or scrambled books. These teaching machines were based upon an audiovisual platform and various aspects of behaviorist psychology, the dominate learning paradigm of the period. While the technology proved to be effective, they disappeared within a decade (Gayesk 1989).

The seventies saw the emergence of dial access. The concept was that students could do away with traditional methods of acquiring lessons from instructors. Dial access enabled students to dial-up their lessons from their dorm room or location with access to the central distribution center. Ideally this would do away with the need for large expensive classrooms and to a certain extent, interaction with instructors and other student. The eighties introduced video text, and was considered the first major attempt to go on-line. The 'promise' for education was on-line drill-practice lessons and encyclopedias which could be searched by keywords. The system enabled text and graphics to be transmitted either as part of an unused portion of a television signal (teletext) or over phone lines (videotext). However, videotext was unable to find a market niche in the United States and had been described as a product without a purpose. And, now in the ninties, here comes multimedia CD-ROMs and the Internet. What is it about these technologies that will allow them to be any more successful than their teaching machine predesors? Indeed, any technology which attempts to reduce the significance of the teacher--by shifting the teacher's role from "sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side"-- should
meet with swift and sure resistance. But, as Press (1995) observes:

Perhaps we are seeing the start already. Public funding for universities is dropping, and a Certified Network Engineer certificate from Novell is worth more in many markets than a humanities BA. Institutions like Mind Extension University and Walden University seem to be establishing footholds on The Net. Current universities have the advantages of being well established distribution channels and of accreditation, of having the right to confer degrees, but these could disappear rapidly. ( "McLuhan Meets the Net" by Larry Press, Communications, July, 1995/Volume 38, Number 7, pg.18)

In Conclusion
Given the above predictions-- and sparing you from the hundreds more that could be proffered-- one "sure-fire bet" can be tendered: From henceforth, change will be the only constant in our lives.

No question about it - the information revolution is here...all those ones and zeros we've been passing around - the fuel that flames the digital fire - have reached critical mass and ignited...Its the big bang of our time...(and) it's starting to overwhelm us. It's outstripping our capacity to cope, antiquating our laws, transforming our mores, reshuffeling our economy, reordering our priorites, redefining our workplaces, putting our constitution to the fire, shifting our concept of reality and...The revolution has only just begun. ( "InfoMania" by Steven Levy, Newsweek, February 27,1995, pg.26)

And while the personal-psychic costs of adjusting to all these changes will be formidable, they will prove to be nothing compared to the socio- economic costs incured by those who are left behind. The super information highway is a toll road., it requires an investment in time (to learn the software) and money (to acquire the hardware) necessary for travel.
Given the certainty that there are, and will remain, those unable to afford or unwilling to pay the price of admission society is sure to divide into the
"interconnected-interactives" and the "disconnected- computer-illiterates."
As a consequence we are already beginning to worry about the creation of a new class system in society: the "information rich" and "information poor." Thus, as Glaser (1995) observed, " "Without a thoughtful universal-service policy, cyberspace could well end up as alien and cost-prohibitive to the general public as venturing out of town was during the reign of medieval highway robbers." (Rod Glaser (1995) "Universal service does matter". Wired. p.98.)

How soon, and to what degree our sampling of predictions come true should not be of primary concern. Of greater import is that one take on the broader perspective that dramatic changes in the way we live and learn, work and play are imminent. And with great changes will come great conflicts. For as forewarned by Levy (1995): " As this century closes and we enter the first great computational millenium, one of the great conflicts in civilization will be the attempt to reorder society, culture and government.....The only guarantee is that the transitions will be jarring, especially if the changes arrive pell-mell, and we fail to take measures to shape the direction of the revolution."
And don't be surprised if in the near future you see a pig fly by. It could very well be that while you have been reading this some future Noble prize winning genetic-engineers have been corresponding on the Internet.... and are contemplating the proposition that if it is possible to make silk purses out of sows ears... why not swine-wings out of pig-knuckles.

References

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Michael A. Chamberlain, Ph.D.
Director, New Media Activities
United News & Media, plc

ISSUES IN INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION: THE IMPACT OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES ON SOCIETY

ISSUES IN INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION: THE IMPACT OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES ON SOCIETY

ISSUES IN INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION:
THE IMPACT OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES ON SOCIETY

ISSUES IN INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION:
THE IMPACT OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES ON SOCIETY