The places where computer labs are being built is where the music room and the art room used to be. Soon it will be where the gym used to be. In 20 years’ time we’ll have a country full of computer-literate people who will have lost touch with what’s important in society.
Predictor: Stoll, Clifford
Prediction, in context:Reporter John Diamond writes about computers and how they and the Internet will change people in this 1995 Times of London interview with Cliff Stoll. He says to Stoll: “But surely computer literacy is a skill on a level with pre-computer literacy that just as modern jobs demand that a once-illiterate population learn to read and write, so the next wave of jobs will assume that they can handle a menu and a mouse?” And Stoll answers:”Well, yes. Except that we are emphasizing computer literacy so deeply and so desperately that we are excluding many other things. In the U.S., there is not a school not applying for computer grants left and right. The places where computer labs are being built is where the music room and the art room used to be. Soon it will be where the gym used to be. In 20 years’ time we’ll have a country full of computer-literate people who will have lost touch with what’s important in society.”
Biography:Clifford Stoll was an astrophysicist who also wrote the influential books “Silicon Snake Oil” (1995) and “The Cuckoo’s Egg.” A long-time network user, Stoll made “Silicon Snake Oil” his platform for finding fault with the Internet hype of the early 1990s. He pointed out the pitfalls of a completely networked society and offered arguments in opposition to the hype. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: October 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: E-learning
Name of publication: Times (London)
Title, headline, chapter name: First Disciple of the New Faith Turns Heretic
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=a4d7accfbfebf143a2cfd0f7b9f1ce76&_docnum=11&wchp=dGLbVlb-lSlAl&_md5=28dc85ab6ab7c8e5cf9bd882f8ac5583
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Tencer, Elizabeth L.