Everything will be digital – nothing else will exist. Books will vanish. Newspapers and magazines will fade away. Brick and mortar stores will become extinct. Packaging will be virtual. Art will be projected, broadcast or streamed. Concert venues, movie theaters and sports arenas will be a relic of the past. And, advertising will die out.
Do you agree?
Is this a vision of the future utopia or is it an apocalyptic prophecy? Do we—does anyone really— believe this? Or, are we victims of Wall Street and short term profit takers who know how to move markets?
More important, what do you want? Look at the list and see. What makes sense? What doesn’t? What is really going to add value to your life? And, what, if anything, do you hope will never happen?
Here’s the starting point: today, nearly everything is digital in some way or another—or at least touched by digital technology.
From buying seasonal fruit at your favorite corner market, to learning about the latest fashion trends, to cheering for your favorite sports team, to crying over the latest and saddest exploits of your favorite celebrity, to enjoying the news, music, movies or books: digital technology has helped make the experience more immersive, bigger, more connected and easier to enjoy.
Digital technology has not replaced the experience, it has enhanced it, and that is, I believe, the mistake (or manipulation) that the market seems to make.
So here is a thought to chew on:
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
~ E. W. Dijkstra
Have you ever star gazed…?
Time to take back the experiences…
What do you think?
I agree and wish this happens, so we will be able to save trees. However, I believe the need for the tactile will never, ever be replaced.
In the late 90s, companies such as ScenTeck and Digiscents Inc set out to change the interactive experience with scent-enabled content, as the olfactory senses hold the power to recreate compelling emotions such as love and fear.
The beauty of technology is that it is coming to us, rather than we having to go to it. It is not so much replacing physical needs as it is bringing us closer to them.
GPS satellite technology connects us with physical places, and web-enabled personal devices help us get closer to our relationships or even order that fresh fruit.
Taking this further… If only we could have a chip embedded in our wrists which enables us to access data upon a wish, I would be the first to volunteer for that experiment.
Thanks for propelling this Monday-morning thinking.
I don’t care what experience-enhancing technology they’re working on now, watching a ballgame on TV can never compare to a trip to the ballpark. There’s nothing like surrounding yourself with the energy of thousands of fans while eating an artery-clogging hotdog and drinking an expensive cheap beer.
I don’t want to live a world where I can’t sit on the beach with the waves lapping at my toes, while I shake out the sand from between the pages of a great book.
You’ve certainly caused a stir.
I’m withthe waves and the books myself — here is another one — we have a digital fram at home sitting with all of our other framed pictures. Its really cool — over 100 photos change and disolve one into the other — really cool…
however — pick up the frame the plug comes out of teh wall — hold it the wrong way and teh perspective changes — hold it another way and the whole thing freezes….
I love it — I do — its cool — really — but id trade it — if I had to for the old-fashioned framed picture of my grandson that I can hold and examine and pass around to people who probably dont really want to look at it — but do it without it chnaging to the picture of myself in the clown costume…
PS — check out a new tool on Picassa — ala GPS — it allows you to pinpoint where you took pictures — enhances the rememberance of teh experience
dave, I think this is too 2001-ish. We already went through all this “everything will be digital, brick and mortar are dead”. Mostly of this was major BS promoted by our friends at the big five to sell multi-million dollars projects. But thankfully this is gone, companies are more knowledgeable now, technology is each day smarter and more useful, and users are getting more and more tech-savvy. It’s all a good positive blending.
yes, books will eventually be replaced by bits, in the same way that vinyl was once replaced by CDs and the former was replaced by mp3. And we could endlessly list industries, products or social behaviors that have already or are soon to be drastically altered or vanished completely, like travel booking, international long distance carriers, university school meet-ups, etc. And some others will continue to exist forever, like the need to touch, feel and smell apples before buying. Or cars.
in this constant state of flux, some things will certainly change or vanish and jobs will be lost (while presumedly others will be created), and the scary (or opportunity) part is that money will change hands in a speed that was never seen before.
IMO Digital is the recognition that “change”, instead, is the new status quo. Digital won’t replace anything, as there’s nothing that will stay long enough to serve as the ‘replacement’. We’re not in the middle of a “revolution” and nor even an “Evolution”. For the next decade or so we’re not going from A to B. We’re just .. going.
ps:
interesting — yet amazon is mailing more than ever before — Netflix has just gone to live service operators and American Eagle packs the youngins into their stores — 2001ish? maybe or maybe not….
Funny juxtaposition of telescopes and IT. At home I have two telescopes and five computers.
Doing astronomy, looking at the stars with or without a telescope is a reflective and soul expanding activity.
Using computers is a lot more about cursing and swearing and bending rules. The effort to get what you want from IT – when the design and forethought have not gone that far – is often about compromise and dissatisaction. When IT is “cool” and matches me, that’s a great feeling BUT a rare one.
On the other hand, my GPS tells me to make a right turn 100 metres from my home – over a 20 metre drop. IT revenge?
Tom.
PS: Dijkstra (died a couple of years ago) had been pontificating (usually sagely) about IT. I _think_ I heard the telescopes quote in the 1980s.
For some reason is gelled with me, alongside a short article by Terry Winograd (author of Shrdlu) about “Patchwork Rationalism”, and why the kind of analysis and “modeling” of reality found in IT is often deficient. Rather than the (IT) framework reflecting reality it tends to be reality bending to fit the framework. In practical terms this changes how we view reality…
Tom.
Technology doesn’t seem to advance us forward as a race…when you look back at the Egyptians, Incas & Aztecs – they did much more technologically advanced things archeologically – without technology – things we still cannot do today. So, in the end how valuable is the current/forthcoming digital technological advancements in (improving) our lives…
A good book to read: Fingerprints of the Gods, by Graham Hancock
Microsoft has said that they spent too many years bending the world to computers now its time to bend computers to people — interesting –
Hope digital can help us all in what refers our generic needs…hope it does not means that we´ll loose the pleasure of reading and smelling a new book, the emotion of visiting an exibithion, etc…
Mário
Speaking of bending things…
…MS and computers may well have been bending humans for a while, but humans have been bending their physical environments and social arrangements whenever they could. I don’t expect the longer term outcome between IT and humans will be all that predictable.
The blogosphere and lots of information sources are looking very individualistic and even anarchistic right now. I wonder what’s just off the radar.
Tom.
That is a cool point — Marconi was never really sure what he was creating; neither was Alexander Graham Bell; I imagine that teh first human to roll a wheel like object didnt see mars rovers either……
I don’t think digital will ever entirely replace “real world” experiences, but we will certainly have a bevy of new digital media in the years to come. I think that as technologies like digital ink move into the mainstream we will also have a renewed appreciation for things like letterpress printing. This is something we are already seeing. A quick search on Google for “letterpress stationary” already shows this to be a reality. For every iPod there is a new hip old-style stationary company emerging.
As we grow more and more digitally complex, there will be those that will always appreciate and savor a finely printed book or writing with a stunning pen or gorgeous stationary. And that may be the same person.