Review: Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change, by Bob Seidensticker

First of all, this is not the kind of book I normally read.

The non-fiction I normally devour promotes technology as a way of life. The volumes I crack open paint pictures of digital Nirvana, its circuits woven through our lives until they become invisible ingredients of the very fabric. The tech-tomes I love are ones which tell me that all problems known to mankind can be solved with technology.

Well, not quite…but I am obviously a techie. Anyone who’s expressed the goal of making his house a self-monitoring, intelligent entity—more on that some other day—has got to be a fan of tech. So it was a bit unusual for me to pick up a book that proclaims the e-Emperor to be wearing no clothes. It might be because I’ve noticed lately that too much of my time is spent configuring things. I’m just old enough to remember when the world was analogue…things seemed simpler then as opposed to now. What’s happening to our digital utopia? I decided to get another point of view.

The author of the book, Bob Seidensticker, wants to talk to us about the times we’re living in—these times of rapid-fire change unlike any that has ever been in the history of man. And what he wants us to know about all this change, this acceleration, this what-on-earth-will-they-invent-tomorrow blur we live in is simply this:

It’s all a bunch of hype.

The book is intelligently presented, first with examples of technologies developed in centuries past. It weighs the importance of each, and comes up with surprising answers. Not everything we’ve done in the past generation or two was really all that important in comparison. And not every technology of millennia past pales in comparison to those of today.

The book is peppered with quotes worth remembering, from tech and political leaders present and past: “We are drowning in information and starved for knowledge.” “I have seen the future, and it’s still in the future.” “The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.” My personal favourite: “For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.”

Seidensticker never seems to be content to state an opinion without backing it up with relevant facts. For example, he points out how “the next big thing” is usually just a technology that has temporarily received society’s spotlight…until the next big thing after that comes along. Thus, the age of cathedral building…of printing…of steam…of nuclear power…the space age…the information age…nanotechnology…and onward.

The book is divided into two main parts, the first dealing with the ways we see technology incorrectly. The second part discusses how “the more things change, well…”

The author wisely makes no attempt to get us to disrespect technology. What he does do is to leave us with a healthy set of guidelines for interpreting change correctly. What signs are there that the “next big thing” really will be? Is it really going to change humanity in the way that the printing press did? Or will it wind up as a footnote in the path of mankind’s development?

In all, a fascinating book, one guaranteed to help us keep it all in perspective.