IP: "Highway to Where? The real questions are social

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 9, No. 174. Center for
Electronic Texts in the Humanities (Princeton/Rutgers)
http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist


[1]   From:    Willard McCarty <mccarty () epas utoronto ca
(83) Subject: What highway?


[The following came to me in the University of Toronto alumni
magazine. It is republished here with the gracious permission of
the editor, George Cook, and the author.]




Gale Moore, "Highway to Where? The real questions are social not
technical".




I RECENTLY RETURNED FROM A THREE year adventure: I lived in the
future. What is it like? I arrive at my Toronto office, unlock
the door and hear a cheery greeting. There's Gerald, in Ottawa,
on the television monitor on my desk - I've left my "electronic
door" open - who wants me to attend a meeting in Waterloo at
five o'clock. I comment on the fact he's wearing a suit and he
tells me about a visitor he's expecting and leaves. At 4:45 my
electronic assistant reminds me of the meeting. A few clicks of
my mouse and I am with John in Waterloo - Gerald has already
arrived. We see and hear each other and work on a document that
we share on our electronic whiteboards. The meeting over I
prepare to leave for the day. It was cloudy earlier, so I glance
out my "video window" a dynamic view of the campus - it's
raining. I grab my umbrella and head for home.


How was this possible? I was a member of the Ontario
Telepresence Project, a research group that created an
audio/video communication environment designed to respect our
belief that communication is an inherently social process.


How good was it? When the project ended this January I
experienced what I can only describe as "video withdrawal". We
still had unlimited telephone and e-mail connections but they
weren't enough. By February I was on a train to Ottawa.


In contrast I recently returned from the American southwest
where simply using the telephone was an exercise in frustration.
I lost several dollars without making a single connection.
Undoubtedly American technology was not the culprit.
Deregulation policies that have led to fragmentation of services
were the more likely suspect. Clearly I was off the Information
Highway and back on Route 66. I wondered: was this a glimpse of
Canada's future as we head down the same path?


Reflecting on these experiences and others over the past few
years reinforced my belief that the most important issues we
need to address as we race to embrace the Information Age are
social, not technical. As grave as the dangers are that come
from technology, the products - be they bombs or computers - are
real and visible and provide us with an object on which to focus
resistance. The realm of the social, on the other hand, is less
tangible, often invisible and we frequently use metaphor to
describe social relationships. The metaphor then frames our
understanding and constrains our vision of the future. The
Information Highway is a case in point.


Communication and collaboration were the primary interests of
the early users of the Internet and it evolved into a relatively
democratic set of communities. But like other alternative
communities that have emerged in large cities - Toronto's
Yorkville in the 1960s is one example - the Internet settlements
attracted attention, "tourists" arrived and the market potential
was identified.


By 1959 Daniel Bell, the Harvard sociologist, had already
identified information as a commodity in post-industrial society
and the Internet is information. Not surprisingly the Internet
became a market and the Information Highway was the new
metaphor. Speed, competitiveness and the transfer of "goods" all
contribute to the metaphor. It plays to our fears of being left
out (no on-ramp) or, worse, wiped out (road-kill) and we forget
how the construction of superhighways destroyed communities in
the past. So if you're surfing the Net, get ready to pay more
for your surfboard. Lest this read like nostalgia for the brief
golden age of the Net there are serious reasons for concern
about the ways in which this metaphor limits our view. Here are
two.


What is good about the Internet should be a public good,
otherwise we are creating a new category of the disadvantaged.
Where are the discussions about universal access or privacy for
the individual amid the scramble for market share? And what
about the implications for employment?


Second if you have spent any time on the Net you will know not
only how much information there is but how hard it is to find a
specific item. And what might you be missing by not looking in
more traditional places? All information is not created equal
and it is what we actually do with information that transforms
it. Thinking, reasoning and evaluating are where the emphasis
should lie.


Looking to the future we must be Janus-like - facing both ways,
making sure that we do not lose what we will come to understand
too late that we value highly. There are market interests
driving the Information Highway. We have the technical means to
any endbut where are we going? Tolstoy posed the fundamental
question: "What shall we do, and how shall we arrange our
lives?" We are all responsible for the answer.


-------------------------------------------------------------


Dr. Gale Moore was head of social sciences for the Ontario
Telepresence Project and is currently research and education
specialist for the social sciences at the University of Toronto
Library. She may be contacted via e-mail,
mooreg () library utoronto ca.


Originally published in <tUniversity of Toronto Magazine</t 23.1
(August 1995): 48.