The History of Mass-Communication Technology
The single greatest shift in the history of mass-communication technology occurred in the 15th century and was well described by Victor Hugo in a famous chapter of Notre-Distemper risk. It was a Cathedral. On all parts of the giant building, and stone representations of every kind, combined with huge windows of stained glass, told Replica Watches the stories of the Bible and the saints, displayed the intricacies of Christian theology, adverted to the existence of highly unpleasant demonic winged creatures, referred diplomatically to the majesties of political power, and in addition, by means of bells in bell towers, told time for the benefit of all of Fairs and much of France. It was an awesome engine of communication.
Then came the transition to something still more awesome. The new technology of mass communication was portable, could sit on your table, and was easily replicable, and yet, paradoxically, contained more information, more systematically presented than even the largest of cathedrals. It was the printed book. Though it provided no bells and could not tell time; the over-all superiority of the new invention Tag Heuer Replica was unmistakable.
In the last ten or twenty years, we have been undergoing a more or less equivalent shift – this time to a new life as a computer-using population. The gain in profitability, capability, ease, orderliness, accuracy, reliability, and information-storage over anything achievable by pen scribbling, typewriting, and cabinet filing is recognized by all. The progress for civilization is undeniable and, plainly, irreversible. Yet, just as the book’s triumph over the cathedral divided people into two groups, one of which prospered, while the other lapsed into, gloom, the computer’s triumph has also divided the human race.
You have only to bring a computer into a room to see that some people begin at once to buzz with curiosity and excitement, sit down to conduct experiments, ooh and ah at the boxes and beeps, and master the use of the computer on a new program as quickly as athletes playing a delightful new game. But how difficult it is — how grim and frightful? For the other people, the defeated class, whose temperament does not naturally respond to computers, the machine whirrs and glows before them and their faces twitch. They may be splendidly educated, as measured by look reading, yet their instincts are all wrong, and no amount of manual-studying and mouse-clicking will make them right. Computers require a sharply different set of aptitudes, and, if the aptitudes are missing, little can be done, and misery is guaranteed.
Is the computer industry aware that computers have divided mankind into two new, previously unknown classes, the computer personalities and the non-computer personalities? Yes, the industry knows this. Vast sums have been expended in order to adapt the computer to the limitations of non-computer personalities. Apple’s Macintosh, with its zooming animations and pull-down menus and little pictures of file folders and watch faces and trash cans, pointed the way. Such seductions have soothed the apprehensions of a certain number of the computer-averse. This spring, the computer industry’s efforts are reaching a culmination of sorts. Microsoft, Bill Gates’ giant corporation, is to bring out a program package called Microsoft Bob, designed by Mr. Gates’ wife, Melinda French, and intended to render computer technology available even to people who are openly terrified of computers. Bob’s principle is to take the several tasks of operating a computer, rename them in a folksy style, and Tag Heuer Carrera Replica assign to them the images of an ideal room in an ideal home, with furniture and bookshelves, and with chummy cartoon helpers (“Friends of Bob”) to guide the computer user over the rough spots, and, in that way, simulate an atmosphere that feels nothing like computers.
Processing your request, Please wait....
