Silicon Snake Oil Second thoughts on the Information Highway I've just finished my second book ... it's a perplexed meditation on the Internet. Doubleday says... - Does the internet really bring us together ... or does it isolate us from each other?
- Suppose the network replaces newspapers, books, libraries, and teachers. Is that a good thing?
- Do computers and networks really belong in the classroom?
- Why does the network promise so much, yet deliver so little?
In turn, I worry that - Schools, libraries, and even businesses are being sold down the river, wasting money on ineffective and counterproductive computing systems.
- Information available over the Internet is often stale, incomplete, misleading, unreviewed, or simply wrong.
- Face to face meetings are far more meaningful and valuable than disembodied network interactions.
- The Internet provides a vast amount of data. But there's a wide gulf between data and information. There's a long distance from information to knowledge.
- E-mail is clumsy, inefficient, and impersonal. It appears to be free, yet is actually quite expensive, and can be much slower than ordinary postal mail.
- The Internet is a poor place for commerce ... it's missing one critical ingredient. Hint: digital cash won't solve this problem!
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