You’ve heard the idea of a blissful utopia and perhaps you also know the word describing its opposite: dystopia. Now, writing in the April 2007 issue of Digital Journalist, Beverly Spicer has thought of a new word, technotopia, to describe a possible future for those of us in the industrialized world.
Wikipedia describes a technotopia as a technology-driven utopia.
And the most fascinating link in Spicer’s article describes exactly that. It’s a link to a video by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson, presented under the auspices of The Museum of Media History in Tampa, Florida. The video is called EPIC 2015. It speaks of a world - only 8 years from now - in which people have access to “a breadth and depth of information unimaginable in an earlier age.”
In this possible future world, “a living breathing mediascape” has replaced the press as we know it.
What might it be like to live in this “mediascape?”
Primarily, because our world is a human world, the dominating aspect is human interaction, according to EPIC 2015. We are, after all, a social species. The video describes a world of the near future in which all of us - in the industrialized part of the world - will have an chance to contribute in large or small ways to the prevailing “mediascape.”
In the process, we’ll all become more connected to each other and to the world.
At least, that’s the very fascinating vision of Epic 2015.
Check out this video. Tell me if you think it’s where we’re headed.
Whoa. The video made me feel like I was in a massage office - but instead of a massage, I received wacky media predictions.
I do think that the most accessed information will continue to grow more superficial and sensational, based on its easy popularity. Their ideas about filtering news based on what your friends are reading reminds me of this study I read about yesterday in a piece in the New York Times magazine. But I don’t see the New York Times going “offline, only to be read by the elite and elderly”. If anything, it will be only online. I don’t think, or at least I hope, that solid journalism and facts will ever lose their importance - at least to the elite and elderly.
(I also found it interesting that the video uses “Winston Smith” in St. Petersburg, FL as the template for its “Googlezon” credit/ identity card.)
Lindsay … how will we know which are the “facts?”
Just wondering,
Deborah
Deborah,
You have caught me on my casual and erroneous use of the word, “facts.” At least I didn’t say, “objective journalism.”
Didn’t mean to catch you! I’m just very interested in the idea of “truth.” I think that’s why this video - EPIC 2015 - fascinated me so much.
I was interested in the idea of a future Internet that’s a mass of trivia for some … but a world of untold depth and nuance for others. And as one of my friends pointed out, in the video, the narrator says, “but it’s what we chose, what we wanted.”
I’m also very interested in the idea of connection. And to me this video describes an amazing mechanism for human connection.
So if there are only changeable “facts” in this possible world - only 8 years from now - and yet there is this amazing connection between people … where does the real truth lie?
To me, it seems that it lies in the connection itself.
Everyone says that change (”progress”) is good. But not always. It can be good, but change isn’t always positive. I’ve always a bit of a worrier, I suppose, but I’m concerned that all the technology makes us lazier, both physically and mentally. I’d like to hope that the future will be like “Star Trek.” In the “Star Trek” world, the future is positive and desirable. Technology enhances but doesn’t replace the role of humans. That sounds good.
But then we have the worlds of “I, Robot” and that old science fiction idea of small weak beings with immensely intelligent computers. The latter seems not so implausible anymore. And it’s scary!
There is a whole generation of young people raised on the Internet who are just coming of age — for them, the Internet is not a new technology, it is part of the environment they inhabit. What they will create with the Internet is beyond our capacity to comprehend. Just like those who invented the movies barely tapped the power and potential of the medium.
I believe the world we will create should seek to align technology with nature — there is a lot to learn about appropriate technologies affordable to all, about biomimicry, permaculture, natural building, and renewable energy. Technofiles tend to focus on the glitz and glam of electronic gadgets, but that’s just one aspect of technology.
Perhaps some of us will become like amphibians — inhabiting two worlds, the virtual and the real. Such people might play a vital role in connecting humanity across the globe. But, I imagine, others of us will shun the virtual realms, preferring to putter in the garden. Why shouldn’t both possibilities co-exist in supportive synergy?
Hi Debbie,
Epic 2015 is very interesting. I like the idea that each and everyone of us is becoming the media. We will make and be the news at the same time.
It brings home the point that the web links all humans in the world in a personal way; and that is a good thing.
Valerie
WoW! I felt like Alice in Wonderland there for a minute! You are so right Lindsay, the New York Times will NEVER go offline. never ever.