Like many of us, I am only just getting used to the idea of skywriting.
I wouldn't call myself a technophobe but I know what I like and I like
what I know e.g. I still use the DOS version of WordPerfect.
However, far from inhibiting social interaction, the world of Netscape
has encouraged it. Conversations started on skywriting are often
continued over a drink in the foyer. Much of the conversation in my
house, has been prompted by our own individual journeys in the Web (and
no, they're not computer science buffs or bores). I think skywriting
has much more academic use than tutorials. I always found that I
couldn't find anything in a tutorial, but about two hours later, all
these ideas would come flooding into my head. Skywriting - the perfect
solution.
As well as skywriting, there's so much information on the Web; a lot
of it is pretty crap, but if you're a trivia addict like me, you'll
love it.
People always worry about technology taking over the world. I believe
however that humans are naturally social beings. The form and content
of the social interaction may alter but isn't development what we all
strive for? Look at television: what did people talk about before
television? I bet at some time people worried about books and the
written word killing the art of conversation.
If you read Stevan's article about 'the post-gutenberg galaxy', it
seems clear that up to the present day, the written word has always
differed from speech in terms of speed, grammar etc. That could be
the reason why the written word has never wiped out speech. With the
advent of the 'super information highway' (what a stupid term, that
is) the differences between speech and written word are becoming
increasingly blurred. Personally, a night down the pub with the lads(!)
will always beat sitting at a computer for 3 hours with a can of
lager. But that might not always be true in the future. My motto is:
keep skywriting AND keep talking. It's the best of both worlds.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Feb 13 2001 - 16:23:16 GMT