The future, what a world!
Summary and comment on Nick Biltonâs book: I live in the future & hereâs how it works: Why your world, work and brain are being creatively disrupted
By Roy Gerges, (@GergesRoy on Twitter) student at the University of Ottawa
The New York Timesâ technology writer, design editor and researcher Nick Bilton is an award-winning reporter that enjoys writing articles about the future of technology and how it can impact society in different ways (New York Times, 2015). By targeting the culture and media he shows the different aspects it can influence. He is the author of I live in the future & hereâs how it works: Why your world, work and brain are being creatively disrupted (Crown Business, 2010) where he goes into detail about how he perceived the technological evolution that has happened in the last couple of years and how it changed the face of media as we know it nowadays.
Living in the perfect world where he would receive his newspaper every morning, or even the day before, Bilton discovers rather quickly a change in his habits and of those around him. Being a journalist for the New York Times, a big name in the industry, it was when he called to cancel his own subscription that he knew something is different. People stopped spending time reading the news paper in the morning, waiting a full day to find out what is happening around the world wasnât good enough. It was much easier and faster to open your tablet or smartphone and access all the content that you wanted to see. Even advertisers spent less money on print ads, with revenues going from $47.4 billion in 2005 to $24.8 billion in 2009 (Bilton, 2010). But the people did not stop consuming news, they started consuming it differently, even the concept of news became different; people would go on their Facebook page and consult their daily news feed. But media would stay the same; pictures, videos, music all of it would collide into one and it is the end result that matters the most to the society. Changing the medium that the information was diffused with wasnât a problem in his opinion, but an opportunity.
Some industries adapted to the Internet much quicker than others, in his book Bilton explain how the pornography industry was one of the first to evolve and digitize itâs content. Among the first online services to successfully use a subscriptions type business model and use encryption for credit-card payments (Bilton, 2010). The classic pornography industry was in big danger because nobody would want to pay for the Playboy magazine subscription anymore if a substitute was available online, and sometimes free because people would buy a DVD rip it and post it on a website. Changing the game for good, making these companies realise that it was about the experience offered, as the next generation is always looking for the best and would even pay for a better online experience. Which made smaller companies step up and offer exclusive content that their consumers wanted, they listened to them and gave them something they are willing to pay for and created their own primitive version of social media as we know it today, is what Bilton is saying in his book. Bringing a community together and making it participate or gather around a similar goal is one of the biggest accomplishments of the Internet. Being able to discuss with someone across the globe on a subject that is important by simply using Twitter is a revolutionary achievement. Primarily created to share what youâre doing or what youâre eating with your friends turned into a global information management resource. With so much information itâs only natural that people would start sharing insight and knowledge with others through this medium. Another idea Bilton addresses is who can you trust online? Who is credible? Why trust a certain source instead of another online? He goes over the concept of leaders and followers online, also the 5% rule (Bilton, 2010) where if that many people go in a direction, most likely the mass will follow. Some of the best examples are videos that go viral; these videos are either very simple, funny or foolish.
With all these changes happening, some said that the brain isnât meant to surf online or play video games, in fact the brain is meant to adapt, that being said, Bilton refutes that the brain didnât know how to read but was taught to do so. He even states that a study has proven that surgeons who play video games perform better than those who donât (Bilton, 2010). He also explains that âconsumnivoresâ are who donât simply experience media, but consume and regurgitate it (Bilton, 2010), which brings him to explaining the âme economicsâ in his book. Going through the important aspects of the evolution in technology, he claims that people are better at multitasking than we expect and pay attention at multiple things at the same time. Some fear that the younger generation would be less interested in reading printed books or magazines because it becomes less engaging to read, mostly with the generation being all about multimedia and used to doing everything digitally or online. There are ways for the younger generation to adapt to this situation and stay interested in reading, by adding more engaging content in the books like games or more multimedia to promote learning and education for the generation to come. Itâs all about creating experiences rather than content only, the people will want to participate in the discussion by leaving a comment or sharing the link on their social media page with their own critique. He finishes off by talking about what he seeâs in the future, the future of technology and the future of journalism. Stating that people who will move onto a new form of media will never and go back to the older technologies, for example an individual who has been downloading music onto iTunes for the past couple of years will not decide to buy a CD player and go back to the old ways.
Nick Bilton is a visionary journalist; he was able to showcase his vision of the future in written form by documenting it in a fun to read, engaging and interactive book. Many aspects of the book makes the reader relate to real life situations, like when Bilton goes on about the next generation being able to learn better using technology, with all the new privileges and information available to students. Also, one of the main features in this book was the available online content. By scanning the QR codes in between each chapters, you were able to access exclusive content on his website that link to videos and online discussions about the book. In my opinion, this is a form of social writing enabling the reader to interact in a more direct way with the writer by directly giving him his opinion and/or comments regarding the content. Bilton uses these links to develop his point of view even more.
One of the concepts that really got my attention in this book was the concept of creating an experience for the user or consumer rather than content. By creating value with the experience, itâs much more memorable for the customer to enjoy the story, for example having to solve a puzzle in order to access the next online chapter would be a great tool for students to learn what was in the last part of the book they just read. Also, if there was a video showing examples of something in a book, the consumer would remember and keep in mind that experience provided by the author. Secondly, another part of the book I found interesting was when he spoke about creating communities online and bringing people who have the same interests together from all around the world. The possibilities of such a phenomenon are unreal, some can use it to find cures for diseases, and others use it to share information, while some simply to share what they had for lunch. Such things were inconceivable back when we didnât have access to the Internet, and now itâs something we almost take for granted. Finally, the title of this book intends that our lives are being creatively disrupted by all this new technology, but in a positive manner. As in we are developing our minds by using all these new functionalities and gadgets. Asking a 14 year old to conduct a proper Google search 20 years ago would have been a nightmare, while now they are basically born with that knowledge since they learn it at such a young age. Our brains are evolving, like they have progressed in the past, and will continue to develop in the future. Jim Taylor Ph.D. also supports that, in fact in a 2012 article on psychologytoday.com, he mentions: âRather, because their brains are still developing and malleable, frequent exposure by so-called digital natives to technology is actually wiring the brain in ways very different than in previous generationsâ (Psychology today, 2012). Every generation will have to surpass different barriers to be able to adapt to their current situation, people will have to either stay up to date or get left behind by society and interacting with the world.
On a final note, although this book was an interesting and a new reading experience for myself, some things left me a wondering. First of all, the technologies he tends to talk about in his research are not from the future, but are available in the present time he has written the book. He also makes a return to the past with the story about the newspaper and how he received it every morning, but I felt like that was there mostly to give the impression that what heâs about to talk about is way ahead from the future. Maybe because I am rather tech-savvy is why I had this feeling about the book, if my father or uncle would have read it maybe they would have felt the impact Nick Bilton was trying to make. To continue with another critique regarding this book is the fact that during the entire time, he gives us his reaction to these disruptions but doesnât go in depth about how they affect the society in general, on a day to day basis itâs easy to see the difference these technologies can bring. What about on a larger scale? How are these technologies impacting our society and what changes can be made to help benefit from them even more? I feel like these are some subjects he could have gone through to make his research a better experience.
Bilton, Nick, I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted, (2010), published by Crown Business
New York Times, (2015), Nick Bilton, taken from: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/nick_bilton/index.html
Taylor, Jim, Ph.D., (2012), How Technology is Changing the Way Kids Think and Focus, Psychology Today, taken from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-prime/201212/how-technology-is-changing-the-way-children-think-and-focus
discoholicmusic
jacobvanloon
areudirty
dailybridgerton
tangentwithtanner
2087
andulkaphoto