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==== Epilogue: An Age of Optimism ==== |
==== Epilogue: An Age of Optimism ==== |
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Negroponte's final statements acknowledge the unfavorable outcomes of becoming digital. These issues include [[intellectual property]] abuse, invasion of privacy, digital vandalism, and data thievery.{{sfn|Negroponte|1995|p=227}} As the world transitions from atoms to bits, Negroponte predicts many job positions will be replaced by technologies that can perform more efficiently and accurately.{{sfn|Negroponte|1995|p=227}} However, Negroponte remains optimistic because he believes being digital will result in the decentralization, globalization, harmonization, and empowerment of the future.{{sfn|Negroponte|1995|p=229}} |
Negroponte's final statements acknowledge the unfavorable outcomes of becoming digital. These issues include [[intellectual property]] abuse, invasion of privacy, digital vandalism, and data thievery.{{sfn|Negroponte|1995|p=227}} As the world transitions from atoms to bits, Negroponte predicts many job positions will be replaced by technologies that can perform more efficiently and accurately.{{sfn|Negroponte|1995|p=227}} However, Negroponte remains optimistic because he believes being digital will result in the decentralization, globalization, harmonization, and empowerment of the future.{{sfn|Negroponte|1995|p=229}} |
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=="Negroponte Switch"== |
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{{main|Negroponte switch}} |
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In the 1980s, Negroponte had originated an idea that came to be known as the "Negroponte Switch." Negroponte Switch refers to the information transmission medium used by different devices.{{sfn|Negroponte|1995|p=24}} He suggested that due to accidents of engineering history we had ended with static devices such as televisions receiving their content via signals traveling over the airways, while devices that should have been mobile and personal, such as telephones, were receiving their content over static cables.{{sfn|Negroponte|1995|p=25}} It was his idea that a better use of available communication resources would result if information such as phone calls going through cables was to go through the air, and information now going through the air, such as television signals, was to be delivered over cables.{{sfn|Negroponte|1995|p=24}} Negroponte called this "trading places," but his co-presenter, [[George Gilder]], at an event organized by Northern Telecom called it the "Negroponte Switch" and the name stuck.{{sfn|Negroponte|1995|p=24}} An example is telephones, The mobility that cellular phones provided meant that telephones would become wireless, while the increasing bandwidth requirements for television meant that they would become hardwired.{{sfn|TED|1984}} |
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== Analysis == |
== Analysis == |
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Revision as of 01:20, 6 May 2020
 Being Digital's front cover | |
| Author | Nicholas Negroponte |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. |
Publication date | 1995 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 243 |
| ISBN | 0-679-43919-6 |
Being Digital is a non-fiction book about digital technologies and their possible future by technology author, Nicholas Negroponte. It was originally published in January 1995 by Alfred A. Knopf.
In 1995, Nicholas Negroponte outlines the history of digital technologies and the movement of information in his book, Being Digital. Throughout, he illustrates an idea that came to be known as the "Negroponte Switch." It’s his concept of “trading places between the wired and wireless of information of today.”[1] He predicts possibilities for the future of digitization and examines the shift from weighted atoms to bits. An example includes his belief that high-definition television becomes obsolete in comparison to its transition to a digital medium.[2] Negroponte's message is that eventually we will move toward an entirely digital society. This includes but is not limited to newspapers, entertainment, or sex.
Synopsis
Introduction: "The Paradox of a Book"
The Evian story illustrates the fundamental difference between bits and atoms. The irony was that while discussing “the protection of the American computer industry” and its competitiveness, an American water couldn’t be provided at an American conference.[3]
The Evian bottles represent the “atoms.” He went on to discuss the switch from a weighted mass form that represents "atoms" is changing swiftly to "bits" that are virtual and weightless. It’s the painstaking movement of the physical, time-consuming atom, such as this book, to the “instantaneous and inexpensive transfer of electronic data,” or bits, “that move at the speed of light.”[3]
Negroponte further explains that the computer has changed from a single “mainframe” in a room of a house to a desktop format, then our laps, and now our pockets.[4] Yet, he stresses that is not the end.
He, however, considers the atom format of this book is best. That is because the written word “sparks images and evokes metaphors” unlike the multimedia narrative that leaves little to “the mind’s eye.”[5]
Part One: Bits are Bits
Part one in Being Digital focuses on the difference between bits and atoms. The atom is a physical referent such as CDs, books, and letters. The "bit" is digital or virtual where there is no mass and it can travel and communicate instantaneously throughout multiple platforms.[6] The public utilizes and depends on the information superhighway because the people demand instantaneous results.[7] Bits bring upon instant results without weight or physical matter to rummage through. Decentralizing, globalizing, harmonizing, and empowering are the four qualities of the digital age.[8] When Negroponte says 'bits are bits' he is talking about the fact that bits can be used not only to create more bits, but also new modes of media.[9] One example is converting this book into digital form. With this comes the advantage of it never going out of print. Digital books "are always there."[10] He states that "the change from atoms to bits is irrevocable and unstoppable."[3]
Nonetheless, Negroponte points out that though we are emerging into a digital world, we still experience the world in analog form.[11] Analog form consists of many atoms. The way we use our senses, such as sight and touch, are analog receptors.[11] A disadvantage he points out about bits is the “constraints of the medium on which it is stored or through which it is delivered.”[12]
There are five paths that allow information and entertainment to reach homes: satellite, terrestrial broadcast, cable, telephone, and packaged media.[13] The Federal Communications Commission,or FCC, regulates these paths to make sure there are no interruptions and that signals do not collide with telephone or radio waves.[14] The future of broadcast television is complex because the control of the paths will expand into "bits" spread across multimedia.[15] Broadcasters, in result, will “assign bits” to a particular medium.[15] But, the consumer will have the control on what “bits” are selected.[16] Negroponte says this scenario is of “bitcasting and datacasting and beyond the kind of regulatory control.”[16] There are no “Bit Police” that will confine bits to any specific medium.[17]
Part Two: Interface
In part two, Negroponte discusses the importance of the computer's user interface and how underdeveloped design and functionality can make "being digital" so needlessly complicated.[18] Negroponte views good interface design as the computer's ability to "know you, learn about your needs, and understand verbal and nonverbal languages."[19] Its ease of use will come from its evolution towards a more intelligent and human behavior based interaction. When one's consciousness of the physical interface is decreased, that is when "being digital" will become as simple as having a conversation with another.[20] He introduces ideas such as eye-tracking, touch sensing, and speech recognition as technology that will improve interface functionality.[21] The use of the mouse and typing on the keyboard are physical acts that can be eliminated to advance human-computer interaction.
Negroponte also discusses the importance of a computer's graphical persona and how that influences users' interactions with the machine. Negroponte says, "pixels are pixels is as true as bits are bits."[22] When not enough computing power is dedicated to creating enough pixels to make up what is seen on screen, the resulting effect is "jaggies" which Negroponte describes as unacceptable.[23] The visual experience is crucial to human-computer interaction. This also relates to his ideas of VR requiring a high level of image quality and response time for the technology to offer an immersive experience.[24]
Part Three: Digital Life
Negroponte states we are in the post-information age where “true personalization” is upon us.[25] The machines will understand individuals and their preferences as humans understand humans.[26] Geography is not limited.There is no longer the need to drive our “atoms” into work where we can do our jobs electronically.[26] On-demand information will be the way of being digital.[27] Tomorrow’s economy in information gathering will deal with more “pulling” as opposed to “pushing.”[28] People will get to “pull” the information they want rather than it being “pushed” on them. As technology advances in society, the atoms become bits, and bits transform into more bits. Negroponte states that by studying video store rental habits, it helped to build an electronic VOD system.[29] One way to look at television is, “anything, anytime, and anywhere.”[30]
The internet is the agent that will constantly change.[31] It will continue to evolve with no “apparent designer” or authority figure.[31] Computers are everywhere and multiplying.[32] E-mail is considered more “conversational.”[32] There is no spoken dialogue, but it is closer to speaking than writing.[33] With computers, students no longer need to “dissect frogs to learn about them.”[34]
With bits, communication between machines is easier and they are able to handle numerous protocols and descriptions.[35] The term for this that Negroponte uses is “handshaking.”[35] He predicts that soon “things” will be “digitally active.”[36] There will be no worry of things getting “lost.”[36] Instruction manuals will become obsolete and computers will develop personalities.[37][38]
Modern technology will have advanced and surpassed the old and traditional “practice of surgical medicine beyond recognition.”[39]
Epilogue: An Age of Optimism
Negroponte's final statements acknowledge the unfavorable outcomes of becoming digital. These issues include intellectual property abuse, invasion of privacy, digital vandalism, and data thievery.[40] As the world transitions from atoms to bits, Negroponte predicts many job positions will be replaced by technologies that can perform more efficiently and accurately.[40] However, Negroponte remains optimistic because he believes being digital will result in the decentralization, globalization, harmonization, and empowerment of the future.[41]
Analysis
Manipulation of Bits
Much of what Negroponte states is that there is more dependency on the “bits," and that they are not confined to the “constraints of physical reality.”[42] However, the energy and material that make up these bits prove that information technology is very much “grounded in the physical environment.”[42] James Martin, in response to Negroponte’s assumption, calls this new dematerialized world the “Wired Society.”[43] Martin predicts that the information superhighway allows for a “radical restructuring of both social and geographical relationships.”[43] The result is that people will choose the country life over the city life.[43] Yet, this is not the case. An example Ensmenger and Slayton use is that our global climate change is very dependent on the “assistance of massive databases and complex programs for simulation.”[44] Atoms will not completely disappear because of the bit emergence.The people will not dramatically shift to the rural life because the information technology will prove simpler as the country life seems to represent. Rare earth elements are essential to both information technology and alternative fuel industries.[45] The elements used to produce alternative fuel industries will cause electronic waste, or e-waste.[45] This “implicates the entire digital economy in the transnational flow of toxic materials."[45] More so, the article argues that it is not so much the “bits” that are essential for the information superhighway, but rather the electron.[46] It is the electrification systems that prove to be more efficient in the twentieth century.[46] Yet, it did not decrease the use of resources, or the atomic component.[46] Computers are able to function without the “binary digits,”yet they are useless without the electricity, or electron.[46]
Back to Atoms
Bernd Schmitt argues that the digital revolution is going from bits back to atoms.[47] He says the consumer experience with “technocultural consumption” is far less favored then its physical and solid products.[48] There is less enjoyment in the digital realm.[48] An example is that people are less likely to “donate” for a digital souvenir than a physical souvenir, such as a photograph.[48] He says there is a stronger sense of “psychological ownership.”[48] Physical possessions resemble a person’s self-identity.[48]
Schmitt predicts that medical AI is likely to “become a $10 billion industry in the US by 2025 and replace 80% of the work that doctors do.”[49] However, people prefer human interaction regarding medical care than some algorithm-made technology.[49]
Schmitt does agree with Negroponte on the notion that whatever can be digital, will become digital.[48] An area that is still in development is where technology is increasingly becoming humanized.[50] Schmitt believes the “capabilities of the ‘mind’ and the machine will be indistinguishable.”[50]
In a group focus research conducted on gamers, it shows that a game was less enjoyed when given help from a “computerized helper” as opposed to a helper “construed as a mindless entity.”[51]
The Digital
Thomas Haigh argues that “ the digital” has always been sold to be a new realm of human experience.[52] However, the digital stems from the AMC “ computing machinery “ because of the quantities the computer calculated with were represented by numbers 1s and 0s binary numbers.[53] He argues that the term digital was not necessary to use with computers by the 1970s.[54] In 1993 wired released a new resonance of the term digital.[55] In the Wired magazine Negroponte promotes the idea of “ the digital.” [56]He states that Negronponte claims past things made of atoms are all important, and in the future everything that mattered would be “made of bits.”[57] Elaborating on the fact that the computers digital nature and main focal points shouldn’t just be on it being an “information machine.”[58] He the quotes negropontes predictions of “ cuff links or earrings communicating with each other, phones being able to respond to calls, socializing in digital neighborhoods, mass media being refined by systems for transmitting and receiving personalized information and entertainment, and more. [59]Haigh agrees that “ our phones do support call screenings, online communities have contributed to increase curtail and political polarization. [60]Also, new platforms like Netflix, social media and YouTube have done more that “ refine” mass media.”[61] The digital environment that negroponte has mentioned is a new area of “ the digital”, but “ the digital” has been a thing since 1940s.[62] Negroponte predictions relate more to the “future area” which is the current.
Cybernetic Subjectivity
Timothy Luke prefers the notion of “cybernetic subjectivity” as opposed to Negroponte’s concept of “being digital.”[63] He says it better exemplifies the idea that “being digital” is more an idea of human beings “experiencing new forms of consciousness.”[63]
I. Some Varieties of Digital Being
The government is one preliminary form. It is when the government and politics “inscribe its power and knowledge codes upon large populations.”[63] Voters do not act on their own will but rather become these “mechanic bundles” that are prescribed into making “predictable, transitive, and rational” decisions.[63] Being digital is “animal-like.”[63] Luke categorizes digitalization into categories: Nature/Culture, Humanity/Technology, History/Society, and Being/Time.[63] He points out that Negroponte recognizes that humans are a form of “atoms” and realms of “mentality, dimensionality, and temporality” unfold into “bits.”[63] This concept is what cybernetic subjectivity is all about.
A. Virtual Personae
Luke talks of the hacker, telecommuter, or the web surfer emerging and representing themselves as cyber subjects.[63] He says these positions of “individual agency are more than minor variants of conventional tool usage. They provide new social roles to invent a dramaturgy of collective cultural activity.”[63]
B. Androidized Machines
Another form is the transformation of devices into smart talking digital beings. Human-like traits of consciousness, intelligence, personality, memory, speech, and experience are embedded into once “dead and mute”machines.[63] Luke explains this as Negroponte’s bits occupying atoms.[63]
C. Netizenship
Luke says there is an issue with many people putting trust in Negroponte’s optimism of the “information revolutionists.”[63] He believes few look at the consequences of the "netizens” producing a better world “out of the new social movements of technology.”[63] Luke says Negroponte’s “lame musings of being digital” is a more compound subject and of something more significant.[63] The significance is that being digital is rather digital beings “affecting our history, politics, and culture.”[63]
Reception
In an essay review by Marshall Ruffin, he says Negroponte presents the concept of our society migrating from analog to digital communication in a simplistic way that includes “humor, grace, and no equations.”[64] Ruffin says Being Digital is an “enthusiastic prose” piece that is full of “import without technical detail.”[64] The lack of technical detail is something that F. W. Landcaster addresses as a problem in his 1996 review of Being Digital. He says, "Being Digital is more sociological than technological" which is a result of Negroponte discussing ideas of futuristic technologies without providing enough detail.[65] However, Landcaster agrees with Ruffin and appreciates Being Digital's coherence and inclusion of "interesting anecdotes and nice humor."[66]
In a 1995 review of Being Digital by Samuel C. Florman, Florman acknowledges Negroponte's view of the impending digital age, but finds its implications rather "sinister."[67] He views Negroponte's work as a piece that "celebrates information while disparaging the material world."[67] This outlook is one that reaffirmed his connection to the physical, which are the atoms Negroponte believes will be phased out.[67]
Kirkus reviews Being Digital as offering "informed observations" on how technology will impact the future, but offers little useful analysis on these concepts.[68] Its wide array of content is scattered and disorganized" and is difficult to follow due to Negroponte "veering between oversimplification and clunky jargon."[68] Its main takeaway lies in its "occasional flashes of insight," but is a piece that is muddled by "retreated cyber-hype and familiar predictions."[68]
See also
References
Citations
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 24.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 49.
- ^ a b c Negroponte 1995, p. 4.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 6.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 8.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 14.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 12.
- ^ Knoph 1996.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 18.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 13.
- ^ a b Negroponte 1995, p. 15.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 16.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 51.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 52.
- ^ a b Negroponte 1995, p. 54.
- ^ a b Negroponte 1995, p. 55.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 56.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 89.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 92.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 93.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 131-139.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 107.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 108.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 118.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 164.
- ^ a b Negroponte 1995, p. 165.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 169.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 170.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 172.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 174.
- ^ a b Negroponte 1995, p. 181.
- ^ a b Negroponte 1995, p. 190.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 192.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 199.
- ^ a b Negroponte 1995, p. 207.
- ^ a b Negroponte 1995, p. 209.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 215.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 218.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 220.
- ^ a b Negroponte 1995, p. 227.
- ^ Negroponte 1995, p. 229.
- ^ a b Ensmenger & Slayton 2017, p. 295.
- ^ a b c Ensmenger & Slayton 2017, p. 296.
- ^ Ensmenger & Slayton 2017, p. 297.
- ^ a b c Ensmenger & Slayton 2017, p. 298.
- ^ a b c d Ensmenger & Slayton 2017, p. 299.
- ^ Schmitt 2019, p. 825.
- ^ a b c d e f Schmitt 2019, p. 826.
- ^ a b Schmitt 2019, p. 827.
- ^ a b Schmitt 2019, p. 828.
- ^ Schmitt 2019, p. 830.
- ^ Haigh, Thomas (2014). "We have never been digital". Communications of the ACM. 57 (9): 24–28. doi:10.1145/2644148. ISSN 0001-0782.
- ^ Haigh, Thomas (2014). "We have never been digital". Communications of the ACM. 57 (9): 24–28. doi:10.1145/2644148. ISSN 0001-0782.
- ^ Haigh, Thomas (2014). "We have never been digital". Communications of the ACM. 57 (9): 24–28. doi:10.1145/2644148. ISSN 0001-0782.
- ^ Haigh, Thomas (2014). "We have never been digital". Communications of the ACM. 57 (9): 24–28. doi:10.1145/2644148. ISSN 0001-0782.
- ^ Haigh, Thomas (2014). "We have never been digital". Communications of the ACM. 57 (9): 24–28. doi:10.1145/2644148. ISSN 0001-0782.
- ^ Haigh, Thomas (2014). "We have never been digital". Communications of the ACM. 57 (9): 24–28. doi:10.1145/2644148. ISSN 0001-0782.
- ^ Haigh, Thomas (2014). "We have never been digital". Communications of the ACM. 57 (9): 24–28. doi:10.1145/2644148. ISSN 0001-0782.
- ^ Negroponte, Nicholas. (1995). Being digital. Knopf. p. 6. ISBN 0-679-43919-6. OCLC 50066002.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ Haigh, Thomas (2014). "We have never been digital". Communications of the ACM. 57 (9): 24–28. doi:10.1145/2644148. ISSN 0001-0782.
- ^ Haigh, Thomas (2014). "We have never been digital". Communications of the ACM. 57 (9): 24–28. doi:10.1145/2644148. ISSN 0001-0782.
- ^ Haigh, Thomas (2014). "We have never been digital". Communications of the ACM. 57 (9): 24–28. doi:10.1145/2644148. ISSN 0001-0782.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Luke 1997.
- ^ a b Ruffin 1995.
- ^ Landcaster 1996, p. 208.
- ^ Landcaster 1996, p. 210.
- ^ a b c Florman 1995.
- ^ a b c Kirkus Reviews 2010.
Bibliography
- "Being Digital". Kirkus Reviews. May 20, 2010. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - Ensmenger, Nathan; Slayton, Rebecca (July 2017). "Computing and the Environment: Introducing a Special Issue of Information & Culture". Information & Culture. vol. 52, no. 3: 295–303.
{{cite journal}}:|volume=has extra text (help) - Florman, Samuel C. (February 5, 1995). "He Has Seen the Future and It Works". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - Katz, Barry M. (Summer 2017). "Book Reviews". Design Issues. vol. 13, no. 2: 77.
{{cite journal}}:|volume=has extra text (help) - Knoph, Alfred (April 15, 1996). "The DNA of Information Bits and Atoms". Retrieved 6 December 2019.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - Landcaster, F. W. (April 1996). "Review". The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy. vol. 66, no. 2. The University of Chicago Press: 208–210 – via Jstor.
{{cite journal}}:|volume=has extra text (help) - Levinson, Martin H. (Fall 1996). "Being Digital". ETC: A Review of General Semantics. vol. 53, no. 3: 356–357.
{{cite journal}}:|volume=has extra text (help) - London, Scott (1996). "Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte :: A Book Review by Scott London". Scott.London. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - Luke, Timothy W. (1997). "Digital Beings & Virtual Times: The Politics of Cybersubjectivity". Theory & Event. vol. 1, no. 1 – via Project MUSE.
{{cite journal}}:|volume=has extra text (help) - Negroponte, Nicholas (1995). Being Digital. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-43919-6.
- "Nicholas Negroponte: 5 predictions, from 1984". TED. February 1984. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - Ruffin, Marshall (April 1995). "On Being Digital". Physician Executive. vol. 21, no. 4.
{{cite journal}}:|volume=has extra text (help) - Schmitt, Bernd (Dec 2019). "From Atoms to Bits and Back: A Research Curation on Digital Technology and Agenda for Future Research". Journal of Consumer Research. vol. 46, no. 4: 825–832.
{{cite journal}}:|volume=has extra text (help)