I enjoyed watching all the TED talks this week; I've always enjoyed them, but considered them a guilty pleasure, as I usually watch them when I should be doing something else. A central theme I noticed running through each talk was the concept that we're in the midst of a digital revolution. As defined by dictionary.com, a revolution is:
–noun
--an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.
--a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure, esp. one made suddenly and often accompanied by violence. Compare social evolution.
I think it's safe to say we're embroiled in radical and pervasive change; as Clay Shirky points out, only 4 media revolutions precede the internet: the printing press, the telephone, recorded media, and radio/TV. The interned has made possible the widespread use of the many:many communication model. In other words, we can all communicate with as many people as we desire at any time about anything. If one is adept at cutting through the immense clutter, there's a lot of important information making the rounds these days.
The most exciting part of our little revolution, I think, is that we really have no idea how this will all end up. The predictions we made 20 years ago have been wildly surpassed as technology and human ingenuity have taken tangential turns. I shudder to think that the innovations we'll take for granted in the next 20 years haven't even been conceptualized yet.
3 comments:
If I'm here in 20 years...I will look back and wonder how I survived without the "xxxx" or the "yyyy" that I'll be using then...I probably won't even remember what a text or a twitter really was!!
Can you even imagine what the children of today will be saying 20 years from now? It's almost too scary to think about.
My kids joke with my mother that she is a techno granny becauses she uses email and post pictures to a Picasa page. It wasn't that long ago all our phones had cords and mail was sent using pen and paper. The next twenty years should be pretty exciting. How far are we from 3-D video chats using a magic encoder video ring?
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