The Digital Age

All prognostications regarding the future ages of computer connectivity agree that it will involve vast networks of interconnected computers able to store and share vast amounts of information quickly and easily. For example, The Information Age envisioned by Harlan Cleveland and John Naisbitt sees information as a commodity that can be shaped, stored, and sold. The Virtual/Shocked Age posited by Edith Weiner and Alvin Toffler looks to the reshaping of society based on new and customized ways to use and distribute information. The Aquarian Age may promote computer software-based opportunities for mind-enhancement according to Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi. The Telespheral Age posited by FM-2030 champions the opportunities for ubiquitous telecommunications that allow us to maintain constant contact with information. And The Transhuman Age suggests that humans may, in the future, become information.

What we may see, finally, as well as experience, is what Nicholas Negroponte refers to as The Digital Age. Negroponte predicts that the dominant parts of human interaction and communication will be encoded into digital bits and bytes, computer coded instructions that can be flashed around the globe allowing us to facilitate interconnection and the personalization of information we send and receive. This transition from atoms to bits will produce many worthwhile results. For example, he says,
Your telephone won't ring indiscriminately; it will receive, sort, and perhaps respond to your incoming calls like a well-trained English butler. Mass media will be redefined by systems for transmitting and receiving personalized information and entertainment. Schools will change to become more like museums and playgrounds for children to assemble ideas and socialize with other children all over the world. (8)
Building on this idea, Philip Elmer-Dewitt says "technology watchers foresee a world filled with multisensual media, smart roads and robots that are almost alive (39). . . . Fantastic new opportunities are sure to come. The hard part will be deciding which ones to pursue and which to bypass" (41).

"The Seven Ages of Computer Connectivity" (The Digital Age)
by John F. Barber
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