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Editor's ViewpointMeditations Of A Minnesota Mossback |
Future Shock
The rocky road of technological change includes a Western Union internal memo dated 1876, which read, "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
Eighth grade science was pretty memorable.
For the first time, we had a teacher who looked barely older than we were. Under Mr. Janos' patient supervision, we built hot air balloons with plastic cleaners bags and candles and managed not to light ourselves on fire. If we were lucky, we were chosen to stalk the empty halls and trap - in jars - the fat flies on ancient corridor windows to nourish our terrarium frogs. One day, Mr. Janos brought his guitar into class and sang "Abraham, Martin & John."
Mr. Janos taught us to honor the times in which we lived. But he gave us a glimpse of our future, as well - he showed us a movie on Alvin Toffler's controversial new book, "Future Shock." Like the guitar music, I'm sure it wasn't on the curriculum.
Toffler's book was a term to describe the psychological state of individuals and societies who are coping with "too much change in too short a period of time." Imagine driving down I-494 in Bloomington at night - at 150 miles per hour. Watching the movie was just like that. I remember gripping my desk until after the credits stopped rolling.
As a 13-year-old, I found Toffler's window into my accelerating future shocking.
That future is here.
According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley, the top ten jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn't exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't yet been invented, in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet.
In 2002, Michael Anissimov weighed in on the effect of technological change on humans, asserting that "Human beings can only absorb so much future shock so fast." He goes on to say that humans are bad at predicting future events, but much better at predicting trends.
One of those trends, of course, is information exchange: data are now being shared at a record rate.
The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population of the planet.
There are about 3 billion searches performed on Google each month.
And according to one source, for one out of eight marriages in the U.S. last year, the couples met on the internet.
Recent leaps in information exchange technology are truly "in our faces."
The metro area is seeing a battle play out between Clear Channel Communications and some local cities, who oppose the company's recent move to install the latest in billboard technology along freeways in the Twin Cities (see "The Signs, They Are A-Changin'" on Page A1).
Clear Channel is anticipating a jump in profits.
MnDOT and local governments are scrambling to assess the danger to drivers of these brilliant, rapid-fire information exchanges.
This wouldn't surprise Anissimov, who said that the irrational fear of future technological advances - fear caused by their "future shock value" - is far more likely to occur than blind enthusiasm for those advances.
I don't know much about "irrational fear," except that I'm already pretty nervous that the tailgater behind me who's watching that billboard is going to plow into my rear bumper.
And as for blind enthusiasm - these days, the freeway's not a good place to close your eyes.