EUGENE, Ore. – The Internet has created “information fatigue, anxiety and glut,” in what modern technology expert James Gleick calls “information overload,” while also stating that the Internet is nothing more than “the African talking drum,” that simply passes on information and not knowledge.
Computer science students at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and other universities nationwide, receive the textbook definition that the “Internet” is a short form of the technical term internetwork. The Internet is the result of interconnecting computer networks with special gateways or routers; however, just about everybody, including former Vice President Al Gore, claims they helped invent the Internet, while a mystery surrounds how “the Net” actually came about, says Gleick and other technology experts who also note that the Internet is simply an “innovation devised for saving, manipulating and communicating information.”
Gleick views the Internet as simply a tool and nothing more
“Information theory began as a bridge from mathematics to electrical engineering and from there to computing and the Internet. What English speakers call ‘computer science’ Europeans have known as informatique, informatica, and Informatik,” writes James Gleick in his new book “The Information,” that details why today’s Internet is “simply an overload of information,” that has users “drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets.”
For example, Gleick quotes Claude Shannon – the Internet pioneer who help coin the terms “transistor” and “bits” – as stating the Internet is simply the “reproduction of information at one point,” that becomes “a message selected at another point.”
Gleick, who’s been called by the New York Times as “our leading chronicler of science and modern technology” – after his book “Chaos,” was both a National Book award finalist, and translated into 25 languages. He is also the author of “Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman and Isaac Newton," earning Gleick a Pulitzer Prize nomination.
UCLA claims one of its own – Professor Leonard Kleinrock – sent the first message on “ARPANET” -- which later became the Internet, on October 29, 1969. However, Gleick claims the origins -- of what we now know as the internet -- actually began in 1841 when British Navy Captain William Allen “discovered talking drums” on an expedition to the Niger River in Africa. About the same time, Samuel F.B. Morse “was struggling with his own percussive code, the electromagnetic drumbeat designed to pulse along the telegraph wire.”
Internet origins point to 50 years ago in 1961
In fact, Gleick writes that the origins of the Internet that we know today also goes back 50 years ago to the summer of 1961.
It was in 1961 that “Professor Leonard Kleinrock , a distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, known as a ‘Father of the Internet’ -- first developed the mathematical theory of packet networks. Later, his Host computer at UCLA became the first node of the Internet in 1969," writes Gleick in his new book "The Information."
Flash forward to present day, and Gleick states that most people don’t understand the Internet, but still view it as some sort of god that they bow to in an almost blind obedience. He then adds: “The Internet is simply a tool.”
Making fun of the Internet on “The It Crowd”
A British comedy TV program called “The It Crowd,” is set in London where three staff members at a company “IT department” muse over the Internet, and come to the conclusion that nobody really knows what the Internet really is. Because "nobody really understands the Internet," they decide to have "a bit of fun with it."
During this episode, the IT department introduces a small black box to their fellow workers calling it “the Internet.”
“The duo tell a friend that the Internet is just a small black box; and that if the red light on the top of the box stops flashing, the Internet will be destroyed."
Meanwhile, a fight takes place resulting in the destruction of "The Internet.”
In turn, this 2008 episode of "The It Crowd," points to the myth and the mystery that surrounds the Internet. As the show's writer states, "it's nothing more than information viewed on a screen."
Internet’s impact exaggerated, while washing machine does more for people
The view from a Nobel Prize nominee Ha-Joon Chang -- one of the leading economic advisors to the United Nations -- that “the washing machine has changed society more than the Internet” -- has more than raised eyebrows here at the University of Oregon’s famed “Wearable Computing Lab” that was founded in 1995 at the dawn of the information-era when people were able to transfer information more freely.
Digital-age fans here at the University of Oregon view the Internet as revolutionizing just about everything. “Not so,” states Ha-Joon Chang, a University of Cambridge, England, economist who presents his views on the washing machine in the spring edition of Ode magazine.
Chang argues that the Internet’s revolutionary is pretty harmless, noting that “Instead of reading a paper, we now read the news online. Instead of buying books at a store, we buy them on-line. What’s so revolutionary? The Internet has mainly affected our leisure life. In short, the washing machine has allowed women to get into the labor market so that we have nearly doubled the work force.”
Moreover, Chang questions all the hype about the good stuff the Internet is doing for the poor. “Charities are now working to give people in poor countries access to the Internet. But shouldn’t we spend that money on providing health clinics and safe water? Aren’t these things more relevant? I have no intention of downplaying the importance of the Internet, but its impact has been exaggerated.”
The digital revolution takes a back seat to the washing machine
While the digital revolution has helped make the shift from traditional industry, the clothes washer technology also has been revolutionary, says Chang, because it reduce the drudgery of scrubbing and rubbing clothing.
“Like other household appliances, it has liberated women from doing household work or doing tedious jobs as a domestic servant. A century ago, 10 percent of the labor force worked in other people’s households. Today, very few people do. Apart from the Industrial Revolution, which decreased the number of farmers substantially, I don’t know of a technology that has almost abolished a whole profession on such a scale, in such short time,” said Chang in a recent Ode magazine interview.
Chang is viewed as one of the foremost thinkers on “new economics and development.” His new book, “”23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism” also details his interest in how the washing machine was more revolutionary than the Internet.
Chang has taught at the Faculty of Economics and Politics at the University of Cambridge in England since 1990. In addition to numerous articles in journals and edited volumes, he has published seven authored books. His most recent books include “Kicking Away the Ladder - Development Strategy in Historical Perspective” which won the 2003 Myrdal Prize. His writings have been translated into 13 languages.
Moreover, Chang is credited as working as a top consultant for many international organizations, including various UN agencies such as UNDP (United Nations Development Program) and UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and a number of governments on development policies. He was awarded the 2005 “Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought,” and has been nominated for a Nobel Prize in Economics while also serving as a consultant to the European Investment Bank.
Chang gets clean on the power of the washing machine
Chang likes to think outside the box, that’s why computer experts here in Eugene and other parts of the world are intrigued by this South Korean economist who points to the power of the simple washing machine as doing more for society than the sacred Internet.
Thanks to washing machine technology, “women started having fewer children, gained more bargaining power in their relationships and enjoyed a higher status. This liberation of women has done more for democracy than the Internet,” states Chang in a recent Ode magazine interview. “The washing machine is a symbol of a fundamental change in how we look at women. It has changed society more than the Internet.”
As one of the top economics professors in the world, Chang likes to challenge his students to looking at things in a different way. For instance, he notes that “people like you and me have no memory of spending two hours a day washing our clothes in cold water.”
“People always think they’re in the middle of a revolution while they tend not to realize the enormity of a change that has happened in the past,” adds Chang in the Ode interview. “The telegraph was a revolution, but who looks at it that way these days? The telegraph sped up the transportation of messages over long distances by a huge factor. The fax machine made it even quicker, and the Internet has made it a big quicker again – but really, not by so much.”
Image source of African drummers: Wikipedia
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