文章基本信息

标题：Strokes ... from the Penn
作者：Penn, Ira A
期刊名称：The Information Management Magazine
印刷版ISSN：1535-2897
电子版ISSN：2155-3505
出版年度：1994
卷号：Oct 1994
出版社：A R M A International

Strokes ... from the Penn

Penn, Ira A

The Information Superhighway. Road to the future. Path to scholarship. Avenue to effectiveness. Route to economic well-being. A resource with which students will learn, knowledge workers will be more productive, and managers will make better decisions. More succinctly--a 90s version of the Paperless Office!

The parallels between the two conceptual systems are too close to be ignored. In the 1970s the Paperless Office failed to materialize because:

* It demanded a level of technological standardization that manufacturers were unwilling to accept.

* It required users to rely completely on equipment that they did not understand and inherently mistrusted.

* It was "hyped" to the point that even if the aforementioned problems had been overcome, it couldn't have lived up to expectations.

The same might be said of the Information Superhighway today.

In retrospect, the non-existence of the Paperless Office has hardly been detrimental to mankind. Looking ahead at the "potential' for the Superhighway, we might all be better off if they keep that scheme on the drawing board as well.

The Information Superhighway (which is, in reality, not a highway at all, but a huge electronic network connecting a myriad of bulletin boards and databases) is billed as the ultimate in information accessibility. It may well be. Information, however, is a relative thing. I'd like to think of the Information Superhighway as a digital reincarnation of the Great Library at Alexandria. From what I see being described, it will more likely resemble the mutant offspring of a cross between a Personal Computer and Cable TV.

There is an economic theory which posits 'bad money drives out good." If there is no similar theory regarding information, there should be. Given the choice between Ovid and Oprah, the populace is going to opt for the odious every time. In that regard, the Information Superhighway will be like any other turnpike. Students will be cruising down the road (to play video games). Knowledge workers will be converging at rest stops (to chat with "psychic friends"). And managers will be attempting to avoid detection (as they log-on to the cybersex bulletin board). If you believe that to be an overly-grim scenario, just do some research into current on-line services and see what the popular activities are.

Given that the Information Superhighway is going to be a toll road, it's probably too much to expect that it will provide anything other than what the majority of those using it want. At the least, however, it ought to be assigned an appropriate designation. With the name Entertainment Superhighway, people would know before they paid the access fee what they really would be likely to encounter along the way.