Computer mediated communication is likely to be seen by future generations as a major turning point in the history of communication. "One could argue that computer communication is one of the perhaps four most fundamental changes in the history of communications technology. Any such list is, of course, judgmental, but the case can be made that writing 5,000 years ago, printing 500 years ago, telegraphy 150 years ago, and now computer communication were the four truly revolutionary changes, and that most of the thousands of other changes in communication technology have been but perfecting adaptations of these four" (De Sola Pool 1984, 33). The term "revolution" is key here. Computers are likely to change a great deal about life and culture.
For instance, hypertext may change the way documents are read. Hypertext is a way of linking information and documents such that "documents form a kind of fabric for intellectual activity where the threads of one document become part of the fabric of a subsequent document. The relationships between documents are complex and include the migration of both content and ideas" (De Sola Pool 1984, 253). The World Wide Web makes use of hypertext. Users manipulate a mouse to click on highlighted words that bring up related information. The new information could be on a computer across the street or on the other side of the world, giving meaning to the term "World Wide Web." This type of reading gives documents a three-dimensional nature that "challenges our most basic ways of conducting business, it -- like Gutenberg's mass-produced book -- is a new technology with significant enemies" (De Sola Pool 1984, 255).
E.W. Brody, in his 1990 book Communication Tomorrow, explains that all media tend to pass through similar phases. New media are usually first used by an elite before they gradually spread to the rest of society, the phase through which the computer medium seems to be passing (Brody 1990, 52). Then they pass through a phase of specialization or segmentation such as that being experienced by the television, newspaper and magazine industries (Brody 1990, 52).
The sheer amount of information produced today, far exceeds the public's ability to consume it all. An ambitious study in the early 1980s attempted to estimate the total amount of words produced vs. words consumed by all available means in the United States and Japan. The study found that, between 1960 and 1980, the amount of words consumed in the United States grew at one-third the rate of words supplied (De Sola Pool 1984, 20). In 1980, only two percent of total words supplied were consumed (De Sola Pool 1984, 21). Society is experiencing information overload and will need more and more filters to handle it. "As the overload in the number of words available keeps growing, information seekers will turn increasingly to computer searches, abstracts, and other improved reference devices, so as to encompass their needs within the finite time that humans have" (De Sola Pool 1984, 24). Another view suggests that the people will not be so tenacious in gleaning the information they need from this vast storehouse. "Audience research by communication scholars shows that most individuals do not really pay much attention to the mass media, they do not learn much from them, and they do not know much about the news of the world. In fact, most people just let the mass media sort of wash over them" (Rogers 1986, 30).
We are left with blurred and conflicting visions of the coming information highway. Some say it will look much like the current Internet and commercial on-line services, only better, with e-mail connections to millions of other people, sound, video and text (Tynan 1994, 137). But there will also be new devices and gadgets, even some that will fit into the palm of your hand (Tynan 1994, 137). And the information that will flow to and from these devices will include 500 cable channels, electronic newspapers and video phone services (Tynan 1994, 137). And someone, no one knows exactly who, will pay for it all. In the mean time it is important to keep the following in mind: "The evolution of communications technologies is a remarkable story of massive misjudgments and surprising foresight. The recent past is littered with failed communications technologies such as the eight-track tape, the videophone or the waveguide and with technologies whose actual uses proved opposite to those initially intended" (Mulgan 1991, 95).