Same Old Complaints

Everywhere we look, people complain about different aspects of the Internet: information overload, filter bubbles, fake news etc. But, none of these are new complaints, say Tom Standage and Seth Stevenson in their Secret History of Future podcast. The same complaints were heard even when (drumbeats) printing was invented!

 

Huh? What were the concerns with printing, other than the infamous problem the Church had, over losing its power? Well, there was the concern that printing would soon lead to garbage drowning out the good stuff. Even among the good topics, how would one know which particular book to read? And how could one ever know if anything written was really true at all? Oh, and there was also the concern among some that the proliferation of books would soon mean that nobody could ever know everything, because there would be too much information out there.

 

As you can see, some of these concerns were legitimate. And so, solutions that we now take for granted had to be invented.

 

Keyword Indexing: In the pre-printing era, books had to be manually copied. That meant different copies would end up with the same content on different pages. With that problem gone thanks to printing, the concept of keyword indexing was introduced. You know, those keywords at the back of a book, with associated page numbers next to them. This would help a buyer get a feel of what the book was about. As with any new idea, some authors opposed the idea saying readers would just read what interested them, and risk missing the context.

(Internet avatar: Google indexes web pages by keyword, among many things).

 

References: If you liked a topic, you might want to read more on it. And if you liked a particular book, you’d be more inclined to trust it. Ergo, the idea of adding references to other books/sources.

(Internet avatar: Those recommendations from Amazon and Netflix).

 

Is it Good? Excerpts from reviews of the book were soon added to books, as a way to convey quality.

(Internet avatar: Product reviews on Amazon).

 

Today, there’s another option to decide on books: sites like Blinkist. They give 15-minute (or less) audio summaries of many books. Some criticize them saying that it’s not the same as reading the entire book. Others argue that it provides you a way to get a feel of many books, and you could then choose to read the whole book if it sounded interesting to you.

 

Sounds like people tend to talk as if the very foundation of civilization as we know it will end, based on some new invention or technology. So far though, history seems to show that we adapt, adjust and keep moving along just fine.

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