On the Internet—as in life—information is primarily important as a discussion topic. The world does not operate under monastic rule, with its inhabitants locked in their cells, reading and learning only for purposes of quiet contemplation. When most people learn or read something interesting, they want to take that material and pass it along—tell friends about it; debate and discuss it; link to or write about it. People want to interact with information insofar as it enhances the way they interact with other people. And what Web users value isn’t primarily the information itself or any instructional value it might hold, but the opportunity to discuss that content—via links, blog posts, comment sections and so on.
In the 1990s, people regularly referred to the Web as the “information superhighway”—but it would have been more accurate to call it the “information sidewalk.” Like Usenet before it, the Web presented a new way for unexpected messages to be exchanged at a low level of commitment. Hypertext linking made it easier than ever for network users to stumble upon unexpected information—or, indeed, to broadcast their own. The Web makes it easy for users to react to this unexpected information—to directly respond to material formerly known as “broadcast content.” You see versions of this with comment sections on Web sites; or blogs that exist to analyze and critique articles of news; or on YouTube, where users often react to videos by shooting and posting their own videos in response to the original.
These reactions are often derided as irrelevant, unfocused, and insular; as detracting from the value of the Internet. (A recent study by a firm called Pear Analytics found that 40 percent of Twitter messages were nothing but “pointless babble.”) But, seen from a different angle, these often-bland reactions and interactions reveal themselves as the primary value of the Internet. Much of what you find on the Internet can also be found elsewhere. It’s convenient, sure to watch a movie online at a time and place of your choosing—but, if you had to, you could see that same movie in a theater or on a DVD. You can determine Brazil’s GDP with a ten-second Google search—but, if you had to, you could also find that information in a book. If you want to read The Christian Science Monitor, you have to go online—but, generally speaking, you can get comparable news and commentary from other sources. People certainly do go to the Web for content—but they would still be able to find the same or similar content if the Web didn’t exist (even though the finding would be less convenient).
What you can’t get anywhere except the Internet, however, are the numerous speedy, uniquely low-risk communications opportunities found therein, and the specific sense of community that can result from those interactions. Online, content is fungible. Sociability is less so. That, perhaps, is the Web’s real value. As Clay Shirky quotes Cory Doctorow as saying in Here Comes Everybody: “Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.”
Social Studies
In America Calling, his social history of telephone usage before the Second World War, Claude S. Fischer observes that “the promoters of a technology do not necessarily know or decide its final uses; that they seek problems or needs for which their technology is the answer, but that consumers themselves develop new uses and ultimately decide which will predominate.”
In the nineteenth century, writes Richard John in Spreading the News, the U.S. government saw the Postal Service as a means by which to distribute newspapers—but this distribution was subsidized by personal mail, which generated an overwhelming percentage of postal revenues. (In 1832, although they comprised 95 percent of total postal weight, newspapers generated but 15 percent of total postal revenue.) “The Post Office would have thrived on letters alone, but would have gone bankrupt instantly had it been forced to survive on newspaper deliveries,” Andrew Odlyzko writes. “Thus content was king in the mind of policy makers, but it was definitely not king in terms of what people were willing to pay for.”
You state that:
"Licklider and his colleagues didn’t predict the human communicative aspect of the ARPANET, but, in retrospect, they shouldn’t have been so surprised. They had built a network infrastructure that was reliable, adaptable, scalable, and inexpensive, with no central authority controlling how it was used. Its utility was defined by its users."
But, Licklider and Taylor, The Computer as a Communication Device, 1968 states that:
"In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face.
What will on-line interactive communities be like? ... They will be communities not of common location, but of common interest. In each field, the overall community of interest will be large enough to support a comprehensive system of field-oriented programs and data."
It might be fair to say Licklider did not envision school children forming social networks, but he clearly saw it happening for intellectual and work collaboration. Licklider was also instrumental in funding Doug Engelbart's work at SRI which was comparable to the ARPANet in its influence, and, support of collaboration and communication is central to that work as well.
#1 Posted by Larry Press, CJR on Tue 8 Sep 2009 at 02:35 PM
You're right: Licklider knew that networks were powerful communications tools, and he knew that they derived much of their power from the way they made it easier for users to connect to and work with one another. But it seemed to me that he expected these communications to be productive, to occur in the pursuit of some common end; that, when people connected online, there'd always be a goal in mind -- a project to be finished, a hypothesis to be tested, etc. I couldn't find much to suggest that Licklider predicted the network would be used so heavily for undirected, sociable communications.
#2 Posted by Justin Peters, CJR on Tue 8 Sep 2009 at 03:01 PM
Those of us who hung around the PLATO lab at the University of Illinois back in the 1972-1973 timeframe couldn't fail to notice the compelling nature of online chat (and online gaming, for that matter).... the PLATO system (mainframe-based, although that fact was relatively transparent to the users) attracted night owls from all over the campus who kept the PLATO terminals (this was the system for which plasma panel displays were invented!) at the various labs packed with night owl devotees, 24/7. Surprising at the time, (when playing games and chatting using computer terminals would have been widely considered terminally (ahem!) geeky!) but a good predictor of usage patterns that continue to this day.
#3 Posted by Gordon E. Peterson, CJR on Tue 8 Sep 2009 at 10:10 PM
The expansion of sociability alone is inherently demotic, not democratic. Democracy seems to me to rely on a mix of sociability and edification. In other words, you've got to read Luther or Paine or Desmoulins or Ho Chi Minh rather than, say, Phineas Lickspittle's Anti-Mason, -Papist & -Mormon Quarterly in order to find whatever hierarchy it is that is crying out for a good smashing. Twitter worked (amazingly well) in Iran because the population that took to the streets of Teheran was pretty seriously informed about a world beyond the tweets.
In general, though, I think I agree with the gist of the piece: there's more grain where there's more chaff. And we've got our hands on a big old thresher.
#4 Posted by Sergei Plum, CJR on Thu 10 Sep 2009 at 12:48 PM
Everyone talks about what is going on RIGHT NOW. What will happen if they get tired of hearing/reading other people's stories that are very much like informal memoirs or diaries?? Tweeter is already losing some of its desire. Teens have told writers it's too old; it's for adults--like their parents. Things happening now get very old very fast. Look at the slower actions on Facebook and Youtube. Many people--myself included--put things up there but most of my partners seldom response. Some ignore it for weeks on end.
The problem I see and it has been mentioned at least twice in two different standard news items--newspaper and magazine-- is what both authors called "serendipity"--seemingly the ability to look for things but find some thing(s) totally different that catches one's attention and he/she becomes interested or engrossed in it just because it's there. That was an activity I used in wandering through libraries and bookstores. I do it now when I can but I can't do it on the Internet. I have to know the topic or the author or the precise source. These last items are fine if one's doing professional research and must remain on one topic. But even that researcher loses out on other valuable sources only because they are not titled in the same way. Or the better items are in the 9000's or 100,000's and the reader doesn't go that far to look The idea mentioned in the earlier part talks about groups interested in bears of all kinds and that is a start in that direction. But it can still be too restricted. I have started with copies of articles on old-fashioned paper on a variety of topics that will be important in years to come but most of my grandchildren won't know many exist since they will be left out of the school text books and most libraries won't have anything in detail. Hopefully, they snoop and then go look further. Maybe I am dreaming. But I like serendipity!! One should never stop broadening his/her mind. But the Internet can.
#5 Posted by Patricia Wilson, CJR on Thu 10 Sep 2009 at 07:48 PM
You forgot to mention that the internet is for porn.
#6 Posted by surlybastard, CJR on Tue 15 Sep 2009 at 11:49 AM