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Author Says The iPhone is a Gutenberg Moment, but with Ample Perils

Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 1:15 PM - by

The iPhone gives people the ability to access the vast knowledge of the Internet almost anywhere they go, and that makes the iPhone one of the most important inventions ever, according to Kevin Myers at the Belfast Telegraph on Friday. In fact, it could be another Gutenberg moment in time. Even so, we don't want to forget how to remember.

The iPhone makes Internet access easy. "At which point, we turn a corner in civilisation. If anyone anywhere can access the internet wherever they are on the planet, then the world is set to change in wholly irrevocable and unforeseeable ways. In other words, the iPhone is probably going to have a greater impact on civilisation than even television," Mr. Myers suggested.

Even more important, the iPhone marks a change in the currents of history. "This is our Gutenberg moment," he wrote. "...the watershed which divides one epoch from another, so much so that the inhabitant of the latter epoch cannot begin to understand what life was like in the earlier one."

Not only are there implications for learning and communication, but also for governments, dynasties. "I merely ask, how on earth can they survive if commuters on buses and trains, people in jungle clearings and round-the-world sailors, can connect with the internet using a device the size of half a biscuit?" Mr. Myers wondered.

However, there are also ominous implications for the human species. The iPhone could change the way we acquire knowledge and change the way we decide what to remember. We could go from a species of individuals with hard earned reasoning and knowledge to simply "drone-terminals for the Internet" the author posited.

The author finished with a sober warning: "Nonetheless, there is surely an argument now for ensuring that children remember many, apparently 'irrelevant' things; for memory does not just connect us to the past, but as a communal act, it connects us to one another today.

"Otherwise, the iPhone, and all that will follow from it, could turn us all into disconnected molecules, swirling around in the solar blizzard of cyberspace."

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geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1922 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Nov 16, 2007 2:45 pm

Gutenberg moment? That seems a bit strong. The iPhone is good but it's not like the printing press that revolutionized pubication and made books available to the masses. It wasn't even the first data phone that could surf.

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j.martellaro said:

member since 07 Dec 2006 with 97 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Nov 16, 2007 3:29 pm

I remember reading about a study that said 10% of all other smartphone users had been on the Internet -- with their phones -- while 90% of iPhone users have been

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brett_x said:

member since 24 Jan 2006 with 322 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Nov 16, 2007 3:30 pm

Interesting article. I didn't catch its point by reading the blurb above. The main point seemed to be "Why learn if it's on the internet, and therefore at your fingertips if you have an iPhone." And that is a very valid point. It's something I've discussed with friends over the last couple of years in reference to the internet in general (not specific to the iPhone).

When was the last time you were having a conversation about something and couldn't recall the name of a movie or an actor or something, and pulled up imdb.com to find the answer? How about Google? Has Google become a substitute for trying really hard to recall information you once knew? I know it has for me. It scares me a bit, but I think we'll adapt. As history repeats itself, this is not much different than an encyclopedia in every home. Before that, you would have had to go to the library to dig up the information. And before that... ??

My guess on the upside of all of this is that we become more specialized in what we do because we won't have to "save room" for the junk that we keep and never use. The kids these days aren't memorizing names and dates of dead famous people and historic events because they don't have to. But that kind of knowledge didn't get most of us far in the first place.

Remember how in the 80's.. if you knew "computers", you knew "EVERYTHING" about computers? It was the same with Medical doctors, too. You used to go to "the doctor's" office, meaning the one doctor that took care of everything. Now, there are all kinds of doctors as well as all kinds of "computer" people... from people who swap out broken hard drives down to people who specialize in huge data storage.

We're getting more and more specialized every year. There's only so much one person can know. No person can know everything about computers anymore. And no doctor can know everything about our health.

Unfortunately, I think we're going to have to concentrate on adapting early on in life to this new reality. It will probably mean that what we know of "education" has to go out the window. What good does it do for a 4th grader to know when Ben Franklin died? We're probably going to have to start them on a more relevant curriculum early in life based on what they are really interested in and stop grading them on things that just don't interest them in the first place.

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Sir Harry Flashman said:

member since 08 Feb 2007 with 792 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:16 pm

brett_x wrote:
Interesting article. I didn't catch its point by reading the blurb above. The main point seemed to be "Why learn if it's on the internet, and therefore at your fingertips if you have an iPhone." And that is a very valid point. It's something I've discussed with friends over the last couple of years in reference to the internet in general...

There is an anecdote about Albert Einstein which may be true or not. A colleague of Einstein asked for his telephone number. Einstein grabbed a phone book and looked it up. When he was asked why he didn't memorize his phone number Einstein said that it wasn't necessary because it was easy enough to find. Now Einstein probably had his head full of information that was more important to him than his phone number.

Anyway, I wouldn't "call" the iPhone a Gutenberg moment. The internet and search engines was a Gutenberg moment and the iPhone just enhances it. Maybe the iPhone could be considered an Aldus Manutius moment.

I need lunch.

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geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1922 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:40 pm

Isaac Asimov liked to tell a story about one time when he was writing a story and needed to know how fast the rings of Saturn were moving. He went through a bunch of mathimatics and then after an hour realized that he had reinvented Keplers laws of Planitary Motion.

He said that the lesson he learned was that most people don't know things. Smart people know where to look up things. Really brilliant people can invent whatever they need whenever they need it.

I guess we're all becoming smart people.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Nov 16, 2007 7:03 pm

'What good does it do for a 4th grader to know when Ben Franklin died? We're probably going to have to start them on a more relevant curriculum early in life based on what they are really interested in and stop grading them on things that just don't interest them in the first place.'

Ah! Amen! I agree completely, you are definitely onto something, though I won't denigrate the importance of good general ed in the beginning to discover just where these interests might lie. I truly feel that even what is generally regarded as constituting an education will be vastly different; this paradigm is shifting for sure. General education will be very different one day, and surely Uinersities will follow suit. I find it refreshing.

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FakeSteveBallmer said:

member since 11 May 1978 with 43716 posts, Guest, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Nov 16, 2007 7:07 pm

[Troll droppings deleted]

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geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1922 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Nov 16, 2007 7:17 pm

<OT>It has always seemed odd to me how things are taught in primary and secondary school (public or private),

History is taught as isolated dates and names rather than as a flowing tableau of interconnected circumstances.

Science is taught as numbers and things rather than as a process to discover truth.

English (or whatever language you are using) is taught as spelling lists and sentance structure rather as a way to communicate beautifully.

Math is taught as the memorization of multiplication tables and formula rather than as a method of modeling the world.

The list goes on and on. I taught for a while and I ran into so many teachers that seemed to have forgotten why they went into their particular subject. Either that or they would complain (quietly and only off the record) about how the curriculum they were forced to use prevented them from doing the things they knew would work better. </OT>

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