Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [65]
The future will also bring more combinations of bits and the physical environment. Global Positioning System (GPS) data is a good example: some mobile phones today can transmit their exact geographical location to another user or post it on the Web. Parents of young users can then open a bitstream of geo-location data showing where their children are at every moment, even setting alarms in the event that they stray outside a predetermined area. Bit-literate parents will have to choose whether to add their child’s location-bitstream to their media diet. Children may be the most affected of all. How will it change their experience of childhood to know that they are being tracked, to the meter, every waking minute?
GPS data isn’t the only trail of bits that people will generate in the physical world. Satellite cameras are getting more and more accurate, and any moment you walk outside, you (or your car) could be photographed for the next update of Google Earth. (Knowing this, some companies and activists have cleverly painted enormous logos and slogans on roofs and other flat expanses visible to satellites.) Cameras will be nearly ubiquitous on street level, too, at least in urban areas. Corporations, police, even friends with “life recorders” will capture the actions and utterances of everyone in sight, whether they like it or not.
Tracking data will increase in the online world, too. Users leave a digital trail showing where they go and what they do online, and companies will continue to invest in mining that data. (Users can turn off cookies and other tracking mechanisms, but doing so often requires special skills.) Only a minority of users will be very concerned about their privacy online. Most users would prefer to eliminate the frustrations and complexity of technology, even with a loss in privacy. Bit overload, not privacy, will be their primary concern.
As bits increase, new kinds of tools will become more important. Information visualization software will promise to display large data sets for easy scanning, and “social software” like blogs and wikis will offer users new ways to collaborate online. A few instances of these tools will succeed, but many more will fail.51 Ultimately, though, tools will play only a supporting role. The pertinent question is whether individual users will commit to learning and practicing bit literacy.
Bit literacy in offices, companies, governments
Bit literacy will greatly affect the office. Employers, regardless of whether they use the term “bit literacy,” will expect productivity in the increasingly digital office.52 (Employees who can survive, and thrive, in the daily tsunami of e-mails and todos will be hired, promoted, and rewarded. Ineffective, stressed employees who don’t reply to e-mails and leave todos undone will be left behind. The old excuse “I get too much e-mail” won’t be worth much when the coworker across the hall works faster and more accurately under the same load.
The same dynamic will decide the fate of companies and entire industries. Any team’s ability to manage its bits could make the difference between success and failure. This trend has already begun. It’s easy to spot today’s most productive, efficient companies, because they’re in the lead. For example, Google has built its company culture, and thus its products, with bit-literate values of speed and simplicity; by any measure it is one of the most successful technology companies in history. There are productivity gains available to any company that trains its staff to be bit-literate. Companies that simply “go with the flow,” and invest where their technology vendors tell them to, will lag behind.
Governments will also have to engage bits better, on all levels, or suffer the consequences. Bit literacy is already emerging as an issue of national security in the U.S., where traditionally paper-based spy agencies are under mounting pressure