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BOX 2.1
America is staying home. In the 1980s, futurist Faith Popcorn labeled the phenomenon "cocooning." Now she is suggesting that we have entered into an even more isolated phase—"burrowing"—as we go beyond physical withdrawal into emotional withdrawal as well: "Some of us are too overwhelmed or exhausted by the stress of life to bother to return . . . even the phone calls of friends we really want to talk to." The next stage she predicts is "clanning," where we will cluster like birds of a feather into clans of 20 to 20,000 members. That trend is upon us today, and cyberspace is facilitating its growth. In the early part of this century, on a warm summer evening, you could find people sitting on their front porches, calling out to friends and neighbors passing in the street. People lived in communities, knowing who their neighbors were and what they were up to. Radio brought little alteration, except that people might leave their front door open, so that the sounds of "One Man's Family" or "The Shadow" might brighten their evening. Then television came and everything changed. Today, you can walk down those same streets and never see a soul. The only signs of life are the telltale bluish glow of the TV sets within. The resulting social isolation has brought about a new form of instant intimacy. Television shows have devolved from formal stage presentations and movies down to a peek into that interesting neighbor's window down the street (an augmentation of the same peek we used to take in person). You can now watch people just like yourselves losing their pants at a wedding, revealing graphic details of their marital infidelities, or being shot or arrested, all in living color right on your TV. Today, we are engaging in the myth of a set-top box that will connect to the family TV set, around which everyone will cluster, watching in rapture as Dad traverses a labyrinth of baseball statistics or Mom pays the bills. Interactive services do not invite partnership. In the coming decade the single blue glow of the living room TV will be replaced with a separate glow for every member of the family. This has already happened at my house, where we have moved our computers into the living room, so that we can be together while we work and play on our own. With the advent of continuous speech recognition and vocal conversation on the Internet, we may finally be driven into separate rooms, spending time with each other through our viewports and offering greetings as we pass through the hall.
SOURCE: Adapted from a background paper prepared for the August 1996 workshop by Bruce Tognazzini, Healtheon Corporation. |