Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 11, 1992 TAG: 9202110094
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Cathryn McCue
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
ELECTRONIC VILLAGE COULD MAKE US LAZY
In the New River Bureau of this newspaper, we can send computer messages back and forth to reporters and editors in this office, in Roanoke, in other bureaus, one at a time or en masse.we've lernd 2 abbr so we can fit more info on the 4-line form & dont bother w/proper puncuation or spllng the Eng lang b damned
We've become so proficient at zapping these messages around that it seems a time-consuming nuisance to pick up the phone, punch three numbers and talk to a human being.
I must confess that I even send messages to reporter Madelyn Rosenberg, WHO SITS FIVE FEET AWAY FROM ME!
My first year here, I developed solid working relationships via messages with people in the Roanoke office I hardly knew. When we met face to face, it was surprisingly awkward.
So last month when a group of enthusiastic computer whizzes announced plans for the Blacksburg Electronic Village, visions of George Orwell danced through my head.
They're talking about a fiber-optic setup that would allow every Blacksburg resident - who could afford a personal computer - to plug into an information relay system that shrinks distances and warps time.
It's stupefying to think how smart we could become - and lazy.
Groceries, the news, libraries, college courses, stocks, real estate listings, banking services, movies, consumer goods - all at the touch of a finger on the keyboard in your living room.
No longer will the slogan be "Don't leave home without it," but simply "Don't leave home."
Buy your bread and meat through FoodNet. Browse through houses on the market on HomeNet. Choose a zany/horror/Hollywood love story on VidNet.
And no more bustling your kids off to school, there to be exposed to the dangers of playgrounds and lunchrooms. They can receive basic education on ABCNet.
Words, voices, graphics, music, pictures and moving video images in color would flow forth from your personal computer hardly bigger than a breadbox.
The Virginia Tech and C&P Telephone Co. folks are all very excited about the Blacksburg Electronic Village as a model for future networks across the nation, and around the globe.
The idea has its merits. It would certainly be a boon for Blacksburg, a town that has never lacked for self-esteem.
And on the macro scale, these electronic networks would almost eliminate the need for driving, cutting down on fuel consumption, pollution and traffic deaths.
But what about human contact? What about the impromptu conversation, the surprise meeting? A certain measure of intimacy in this life is vital. It's fun, it's weird, it's painful. It makes us who we are.
What will become of us if all we ever have contact with is our computer? Talk about evolution - do we all become zomboids, nothing but lumps of flesh from the waist down, the only mobile parts of us our fingers and eyeballs?
Well, OK, that may be a little drastic.
But I do wonder.
At last month's news conference, I kept asking the guys who'd dreamed up the idea for a Blacksburg Electronic Village about that.
Robert Heterick is the project spokesman and former Tech president for Information Systems.
"People's interactions don't disappear," he said. "They change in intensity and location."
Hm.
I asked Mayor Roger Hedgepeth about it.
"That's a very real danger, and I think it's something we have to guard against."
He's a romantic, he admits, and loves the feel of a book in his hands. "I'd hate to see the printed word fade away."
(So would this newspaper's publisher.)
Later, I called pop culture prof extraordinaire, Marshall Fishwick, to get his reaction.
He had one, all right.
"It doesn't have any flavor. Who wants to go to Moscow to get a hamburger?" he declared. "There is a huge second thought about making the world an electronic village."
The Tech professor said he and some colleagues are alarmed by the rapid changes rushing upon us on the crest of the Information Age.
"We call ourselves, rather amusingly, the New Luddites," he said.
The thought of electronically zapping into the library appalls him. The whole point of going to a library is to meet people and browse through the stacks, never knowing who, or what, one will discover there, he said.
And then why spend millions on libraries when no one will go?
"I like to go to Krogers," Fishwick continued in his typical stream-of-consciousness banter. "It serves the purpose of a cocktail party. We have some of our best conversations at the meat counter."
Cathryn McCue reports on Blacksburg, business and the environment in the New River Valley, and is taking a different view of the social value of traffic jams and checkout lines.