Have you heard anough hype about "the Information Age" yet? You know, the part about how we will all be seamlessly connected in an ultra-efficient economy of pure knowledge? How the era of nation-states is coming to a close as we all become global citizens for whom distance doesn't matter and our personal individuality reigns absolute?
Shyeah, right.
Of course, you've probably heard the backlash also. The part about how computers have destroyed our communities, our spirit, our children, and everything else we hold dear. How the Internet isolates people, undermines important institutions, and is creating far more stress than it is relieving.
John Seely Brown (Chief Scientist for Xerox PARC) and Paul Duguid (a researcher of Social and Cultural Studies in Education at Berkeley) believe the Information Age is far more interesting than either of these extremes. In "The Social Life of Information," they gently debunk the techno-hype without embracing the rhetoric of the hand-wringing alarmists. They show that the rose-colored view of this era comes from ignoring the social dimension inherent in the way humans create, use, and share information, while the pessimistic view comes from doubting its robustness.
In fact, humans succeed best when there is a social dimension to their information processing. That is, we like to interact in the usual human ways-- with eye contact, body language, and the plethora of social cues we are not even aware of noticing. One resulting issue is that technologies that ignore these social dimensions will have problems. That is why we haven't all become united in a frictionless market where distance doesn't matter, and we never will.
A second result of our social needs is that humans will devise ways to achieve that social dimension no matter what sort of technology is mediating the process. No matter what the "visionary" goal for the Internet is, people will find ways to use it to enhance their social interactions and will be less inclined to use it in ways that stifle such interactions. For this reason, the Internet will not "destroy" important institutions like the state, the university, or the neighborhood.
"The Social Life of Information" neatly lays out the key facets of human interaction that are being affected by the new structures of the Innformation Age, such as the Internet, cell phones, mobile computers, "virtual universities," etc. With a cool head, Brown and Duguid explain what these new structures mean in human terms. "Information" is not the simple concept that it is sometimes considered to be. Most people do not behave like the techno-enthusiasts at the MIT Media Lab. Readers gain a clearer understanding of what path(s) we are on-- and what path(s) we are not on.
I'll give the book a solid "+" with the caveat that it is a little bit time-sensitive. I suspect it will not be thrilling reading in 2005 (already some details were out of date with a 2000 copyright). And yet, the key ideas will remain relevant. Let's hope enough people read it now to take its thesis to heart and create some solid, human technologies that we can all use to make the Information Age a pleasant one.
Copyright © Kim Allen 2001
