Clifford Stoll: Why Web Won't Be Nirvana - Newsweek and The Daily Beast
Follow @thedailybeast
SIGN IN
Like
TUMBLR
83.1°
12-08-12 6:35 PM
Search the Daily Beast
DOW 13,148.4 -16.8, NASDAQ 3,020.9 +2.2
187k
HOME
POLITICS
BUSINESS
INNOVATION
ENTERTAINMENT
BEAST TV
BOOKS
ART
WOMEN IN THE WORLD
Featured: OLYMPICS FASHION ANDREW SULLIVAN HOWARD KURTZ DAVID FRUM
TECHNOLOGY
CHANGE TEXT SIZE
AUTHOR
Clifford Stoll
Follow @newsweek
The Internet? Bah!
Feb 26, 1995 7:00 PM EST
Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn't, and will never be, nirvana
Print
Email
Comments
Tweet
439
Like
2.5k
After two decades online, I'm perplexed. It's not that I haven't had a gas of a
good time on the Internet. I've met great people and even caught a hacker or
two. But today, I'm uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community.
Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and
multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual
communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to
networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make
government more democratic.
THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
101 Best Restaurants in the
World
College Rankings
America the Anxious: Why We’re
Freaking Out
Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online
database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a
competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government
works.
Consider today's online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows
anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging
editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The
result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens
band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When
most everyone shouts, few listen. How about electronic publishing? Try reading a
book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky
computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to
the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that
we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.
MOST POPULAR
Mitt Romney’s Game Changer
What Mitt Just Bought
Ryan: More Powerful Than Romney
The 7 Best Moments from Sunday Talk
Be Afraid, Seniors
What the Internet hucksters won't tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of
unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers
or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don't know
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html
STORIES WE LIKE
EW
Page 1 of 4
Clifford Stoll: Why Web Won't Be Nirvana - Newsweek and The Daily Beast
12-08-12 6:35 PM
what to ignore and what's worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I
hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it
takes 15 minutes to unravel them—one's a biography written by an eighth
grader, the second is a computer game that doesn't work and the third is an
image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is
periodically interrupted by messages like, "Too many connections, try again
later."
Won't the Internet be useful in governing? Internet addicts clamor for government
reports. But when Andy Spano ran for county executive in Westchester County,
N.Y., he put every press release and position paper onto a bulletin board. In that
affluent county, with plenty of computer companies, how many voters logged in?
Fewer than 30. Not a good omen.
Kristen Stewart, Pre-Storm: You Can't
Be Fake
HUFFINGTON POST POLITICS
Obama Spanish-Language Ad Touts
Deferred Action
BUZZFEED
5 Shows The Fab Five of the U.S.
Olympics Gymnastics Team Should
Appear On
POP SUGAR
See Victoria Beckham Reunite with the
Spice Girls to Rehearse for the
Olympics
Point and click:
Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We're told that multimedia
will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated
characters while taught by expertly tailored software.Who needs teachers when
you've got computer-aided education? Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to
use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love
videogames—but think of your own experience: can you recall even one
educational filmstrip of decades past? I'll bet you remember the two or three
great teachers who made a difference in your life.
Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping—just point
and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make
restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become
obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than
the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to
send money over the Internet—which there isn't—the network is missing a most
essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.
YOUR TANGO
'I Just Made History. And You're
Focusing On My Hair?'
ASK MEN
Brad Pitt's Next Movie Looks Badass
STYLELIST
Esther Williams: I Was Just Like Phelps
CHEEZBURGER
Triathlon Photo-Finish Gets Appealed:
You Decide
BUZZFEED
The 20 Worst Things About Being Short
What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the
fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks
isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting
friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the
excitement of a live concert. And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing? While
the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-aspower, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it
is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where—in the holy names of
Education and Progress—important aspects of human interactions are
relentlessly devalued.
GET NEWSWEEK ON YOUR IPAD
Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day
long.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at [email protected].
Print
Email
Comments
Tweet
439
Like
2.5k
TAGS: Technology
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html
Page 2 of 4
Clifford Stoll: Why Web Won't Be Nirvana - Newsweek and The Daily Beast
12-08-12 6:35 PM
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Paid Distribution
Jim Rogers: It's
Going To Get
Really "Bad
After The
Election"
Paid Distribution
Disney Pixar’s
Eight Greatest
Moments |
Movie Feature
Kate's Feet
(Red Bull)
(Money Morning)
Michael
Tomasky on
Romney’s
Stunning,
Terrible Choice
of Ryan for VP
COMMENTS
3
Sign in
POST COMMENT AS...
SORT: NEWEST | OLDEST
Powered by Livefyre
OTHER NEWS
ENTERTAINMENT
Jennifer Aniston Gets Engaged to Justin
Theroux!
BING: Stars With Nonfamous Siblings
Week in Photos for Aug. 10, 2012
Get More from Wonderwall
ENTERTAINMENT
ENTERTAINMENT
Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney on ’60 Minutes’:
The three best evasive answers to penetrating
questions
Beautiful Multi-Exposure Olympic Photography
Bonus Quote of the Day
Romney Picked Ryan Over Advisers' Early
Doubts
The Power of Bill Kristol
Olympics Closing Ceremony — Join our liveblog!
Olympic gold medalist David Boudia’s Must
List: AC/DC, Michael Buble, and ‘Modern
Family’
Watch One Direction Perform At The Olympic
Closing Ceremonies
POLITICS
Why Chris Christie Wasn't Picked
Get More from Political Wire
Get More from Buzz Feed
Get More from EW.com
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html
Page 3 of 4
Clifford Stoll: Why Web Won't Be Nirvana - Newsweek and The Daily Beast
HELP
ABOUT
CONTACT US
JOBS
ADVERTISE
PRIVACY
12-08-12 6:35 PM
COMMUNITY POLICY
TERMS OF USE
FINANCIAL DISCLAIMER
COPYRIGHT & TRADEMARK
Sections: HOME POLITICS ENTERTAINMENT BOOKS VIDEO WOMEN IN THE WORLD ANDREW SULLIVAN PRESS NEWSWEEK SUBSCRIBE
Featured: OLYMPICS FASHION ANDREW SULLIVAN HOWARD KURTZ DAVID FRUM
Partners: EXPEDIA HOTELS HOTWIRE MERCHANTCIRCLE REFERENCE THESAURUS URBANSPOON
Weather data provided by Weather Underground, Inc.
GET EMAIL UPDATES SIGN UP
© 2012 The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html
Sign up for daily email updates from The Daily Beast
Page 4 of 4