This is a topic that particularly interests me: What technology is on its way out? These are products that much of Generation Y doesn’t particularly find useful:
“Young people see email as good for sending a thank you letter to an aunt but not much else.”Websites
“The internet is increasingly about building community, not providing content - it offers a way for people to self-organise to create communities. That is why Facebook beat Match.com, why bloggers are beating CNN.com and why Wikipedia is beating Encyclopaedia Britannica.”Fixed line phones
“They will be replaced by mobile devices.”The personal computer
“They will be replaced by small always-connected devices with a high degree of mobility. The personal computer was always an oxymoron for me, it’s like the idea of personal sex. The purpose of computing is to communicate.”
March 27th, 2009 at 9:22 am
I’m feeling old now. These things are on their way out?! It seems to me that the more access people have to devices that keep them continually connected electronically, the less they actually communicate in any real way with other humans.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:30 am
It won’t happen overnight, Sharon! You can keep your PC. And, yes, I agree anthropologically with you.
March 29th, 2009 at 6:09 am
You can pry my PC from my cold, dead hands. Trust me, the PC won’t go away as long as PC gamers are alive and well.
I do however predict that the PC will become more of a gaming/CAD/artist/musician tool than a work tool in years to come. There are certain things you can do with a PC that can’t be done on some miniaturized piece of crap, but that the average working Joe doesn’t need. There will be more of a separation between communication devices and work devices.
March 29th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Oooh, fascinating. You bring such a gamer-hipness to the blog.
March 30th, 2009 at 4:57 am
Ya, I’m so cool. Or l33t. Or something.
March 31st, 2009 at 5:54 am
I’ve been thinking about this. All well and good to say Encyclopedia Britannica is boring and Wikipedia is better… but if I want to know the baggage rules on the airline I’m flying next week, I’d rather have the info from the airline, not some third party who might or might not be right.
Same with email… maybe you would rather twitter with your friends, but is that really how you want to contact the power company with a question about your bill?
I’m an old fogey, clearly.
March 31st, 2009 at 7:40 am
I contact the power company only on my land line!
March 31st, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I think it really comes down to which tools are useful to whom? So far as I can tell, those items most definitely ARE less relevant to the under 25 year old crowd. People still have PCs and laptops, but they are using them for different things. One thing I’d have added to the list: televisions.