presenting: a guardian of content in the digital transition
Digital reading has raised questions among scholars and cultural critics about the way the Internet affects our capacity to concentrate. The interactive textual experience created by hyperlinks and chat, they say, create distractions that are rewiring brain pathways that took thousands of years to evolve.
“I think that’s hysteria,” Koppel says. “The scientific discoveries that are happening now are happening at a rate that has never been matched in human history. This century has changed the landscape of the world more than any other century. From 1900 to 2000, we saw that man could fly—first in the stratosphere and then in space. We went from buggies to cars. I feel like that’s what humans do. They continue to push forward the boundaries of what we know, what we can do.”
On the other hand, Koppel acknowledges that change, no matter how well-intentioned, can bring negative outcomes. For that reason, he says, we must take accountability for shaping the future we desire.
“The only way to see things in the world the right way—the way that you want to see them—is to build them yourself,” he says.
The trick is to translate one’s personal vision into something that others can readily absorb, to find the prototyping tools that people understand. People will carry the libraries of the world in their pockets only if it can be done with a tool that makes sense to them. Herein lies Koppel’s strength.
“I figured out a way to prototype on an iPod,” he says.
“That’s my secret.
I tinker.
I play with stuff.”
Sept 15 & 16
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