Nicholas Negroponte and Being Digital

Nicholas Negroponte, in Being Digital, has written a fascinating and delightful analysis of the world of modern technology, particularly communications technology. The book can be read and enjoyed by the technocrat, the lay user of computers, and even those who have no use for high-tech communications but are nevertheless open to an adventure in ideas and cultural analysis.

At the same time, as this review will argue, there is a degree of naivete to the book which gives the computer revolution a rosy glow and overlooks or minimizes the potentially negative consequences of that revolution. This failure on the part of the author has created a book which is primarily a cheerleading exercise, if a fascinating and often brilliant one, for the digital revolution.

Negroponte's book may certainly be appreciated by the technophobe, but the author also makes quite clear that it will be increasingly difficult for any person in a modern society to remain outside the sphere of computers and the like. Increasingly, he writes, the flow of almost every form of information is based not on atoms (as the atoms of books, for example) but on bits, the stuff of digitalized machines: "The change from atoms to bits is irrevocable and unstoppable" (4). If the transition from atoms to bits is indeed as inevitable as it seems, then we are most fortunate to have a writer and expert like Negroponte to explain the transition in a way which both clarifies our confusion and eases our fears.

Related Essays

Being Digital In the book Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte discusses the meaning of the digital world he sees developing as a consequence of the current and future .... (1650 7 )

Being Digital In the book Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte discusses the meaning of the digital world he sees developing as a consequence of the current and future .... (1643 7 )

2001 in Film and Reality .... In his book, Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte never quite makes that point explicitly, but it is implicit in the great majority of what he has to say. .... (1686 7 )

2001, A Space Odyssey .... In his book, Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte never quite makes that point explicitly, but it is implicit in the great majority of what he has to say. .... (1687 7 )

the time. Personally, I'd rather answer e-mail on Sunday and be in my pajamas longer on Monday (193). This attitude is hardly representative of a consciousness tuned into the social and moral complexities introduced by the digital revolution. Still, the author's joyous embrace of almost all things digital, with an accompanying light-hearted skirting of possibly negative consequences, is engaging. The author makes the technological revolution seem wonderful in almost all regards, and even technophobes and skeptics may find themselves, against their wills, drawn into the author's child-like optimism. There are bound to be contradictions galore in a work which takes the form (atoms in a book) which the author is saying will be increasingly obsolete. Negroponte, in fact, says that one reason he has written the book is that "the written word sparks images and evokes metaphors that get much of their meaning from the reader's imagination and experiences." He adds, however, that "I say this as somebody who does not like to read" (8). The skeptic here might be tempted to conclude that publishing this book as a likely money-making enterprise played some part in the author's appreciation of sparked images and evoked metaphors. In an

Category: Science - N