The end of conversation

iPhones, iPods, iPads and other similar devices are highly regressive. They take us back to the world of passive consumption, like television. I’m surprised Clay Shirky hasn’t said anything yet (maybe he has and I just haven’t heard).

All that cognitive surplus out there is going to evaporate because of these devices, and Apple will be the main culprit.

And if I can’t convince you, let me quote Scott Adams:

Another interesting phenomenon of the iPhone and iPad era is that we are being transformed from producers of content into consumers. With my BlackBerry, I probably created as much data as I consumed. It was easy to thumb-type long explanations, directions, and even jokes and observations. With my iPhone, I try to avoid creating any message that are over one sentence long. But I use the iPhone browser to consume information a hundred times more than I did with the BlackBerry.

I wonder if this will change people over time, in some subtle way that isn’t predictable. What happens when people become trained to think of information and entertainment as something they receive and not something they create? I think this could be a fork in the road for human evolution. Perhaps in a million years, humans will feel no conversational obligation to entertain or provide useful information. That will be the function of the Internet. Someday a scientist will identify the introduction of the iPhone as the point where evolution began to remove conversation from the list of human capabilities. And when the scientist forms this realization, he won’t tell his spouse because conversation won’t exist. He’ll put it on the Internet.