The bloom is off the road … I don’t think it ever was blossoming … It’s promoted in a way that’s bogus: That it’s a virtual community, that it’s good for business, that it’s good for society, that it’s good for education. Within each one is a grain of truth, but not a beachful of truth … We’ve been sold a bill of goods: that it’s better to have a virtual experience, an experience via computer, rather than a real experience of walking among the trees. I think it’s real worrisome.
Predictor: Stoll, Clifford
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article she wrote for The Toronto Sun, Michele Mandel quotes Internet critic Cliff Stoll. She writes: ”Surf’s up. Suffering from electronic Web weariness and online overload, there is a small but growing swell of resistance to riding the crowded information highway. ‘The bloom is off the road,’ says Cliff Stoll, author of the just-published ‘Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway.’ ‘I don’t think it ever was blossoming.’ It was inevitable. After years of hype and hoopla, the Internet could never live up to all the claims ascribed to it. Despite the future prophets, the global computer network has yet to bring a new age of democracy, nor rendered the written word obsolete. ‘It’s promoted in a way that’s bogus: That it’s a virtual community, that it’s good for business, that it’s good for society, that it’s good for education,’ argues Stoll, from his home in Oakland, Calif. ‘Within each one is a grain of truth, but not a beachful of truth.’ … Its critics say it’s far from the Utopian global village promised. ‘It’s not a warm, welcoming community,’ Stoll argues. ‘There’s rudeness, incivility and out and out nastiness. It’s not a friendly place, there’s people taking out their anger and angst. I’d rather go down the block and have coffee with a friend.’ … ‘We’ve been sold a bill of goods: that it’s better to have a virtual experience, an experience via computer, rather than a real experience of walking among the trees. I think it’s real worrisome.’ … ‘There are people out there doing good things without computers, yet they’re assumed to be behind the times and living in a backwater, hellhole,’ Stoll says. ‘But you can live a full, rich life without ever touching a keyboard.'”
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: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Toronto Sun
Title, headline, chapter name: Net Takes Wrong Turn
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=85aa955369397b6f5f62122ec1c28257&_docnum=22&wchp=dGLbVlb-lSlAl&_md5=d4b17b699240700355add1db66c4dfe6
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney