Customer Reviews

Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change

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As an audio specialist these last 30 years, I've seen my share of technology hype. Even though history is littered from horizon to horizon with inflated expectations, broken promises, unfounded predictions, and a few outright lies, I'm always amazed at how easily people are goaded into throwing down their credit card for the latest tech toys. Of course, this book reaffirms that which I already know--technology for its own sake may be cool, but has no other benefits. I was predisposed to enjoy this book, and I wasn't disappointed. The guy who should read this book is the same guy who replaced his Beta tape library with LaserDiscs.

Seidensticker writes in a very anecdotal style. The layout is clean and inviting to the eyes. It is extremely well organized and edited. What makes FUTURE HYPE so much fun is all of the neat little quotes and factoids, some of which are pretty humorous when read in our modern context. An appendix lists sources for material on the subject worth looking into.

Reading this book gives one the long view, and puts current trends in their proper perspective. I sure wish our government and our school district would read it, because what scares me is that we are being forced to buy into technology that actually lowers productivity or has costs disproportionate to its benefits. For instance, our switch to HDTV has been LEGISLATED, because it didn't win over the marketplace overnight as some hoped it would. School students are REQUIRED to use computers to do assignments which can be done faster with a book, pen, and paper. FUTURE HYPE advocates adopting technologies according to their benefit.

Protect yourself. Read this book before the hype seduces you!

Byron C. Justice, author of "Violent Night"

For those of you who have been worried that despite your best efforts (or because of them) technology is leaving you in the dust, Future Hype is a breath of fresh air. Seidensticker maintains that the pace of technology change today is not any faster than it has been for centuries. Packed with enough historical details to merit its own version of Trivial Pursuit, Future Hype challenges some of the cherished myths of technology change, seeking to replace them with a clear-eyed look at the reality of high tech in the world today, and giving us all a guilt-free chance to get off the treadmill.

Given all the hyperbolic rhetoric surrounding technology its nice to see a more measured approach to the question that also offers some much needed historical perspective. Seidensticker has a great way of stringing together his examples into a coherent narrative that helps to illustrate his incisive analysis. Definitely worth the time.

Future Hype: The Myths Of Technology Change by Bob Seidensticker (a 25 year veteran of the technology industry and holder of thirteen software patents) is an iconoclastic collection of "insider insights" debunking common misconceptions about the role, function, and progress of technology. Providing readers with wealth of useful data and often surprising information, Future Hype reveals nine technological myths including: the disproval of the rate change is not exponential; important new products do not arrive any faster then they ever have; the analytical perspective that the internet doesn't really change everything; and more interesting and documented observations. Future Hype is very strongly recommended reading for students of science and technology, popular culture and contemporary sociology, as well as non-specialist general readers interested in the impact of technology on their lives, their communities, and their future.

The people of every period in history tend to think that the time in which they live is somehow special: dramatically better than, or worse than, or in some way fundamentally different from all the times that came before. (And/or the people of today are *themselves* somehow different from the people of yesterday.) Historians these days are digging past these commonly held ideas and finding that the "truth" (as near as one can approach it) is not that simple; things do change, but there's also a lot of continuity through history--which is often the more surprising story. One of the things I like so much about Future Hype is that, although it isn't a history book and *certainly* isn't an academic book, it shares a similar sensibility and a similar conception of historical change: that change (technological and social change, in this case) is usually not catastrophic or revolutionary (or "exponential"), and that our own place in history is not all that privileged, after all.

So this was obviously a book whose message I was already willing to receive; yet I feel I learned a lot from it. The author presents a model of historical (technological/social) change that is complex enough to be believable and simple enough to be understandable. It also has made me much more aware of the prevalence of "future hype" in many areas of life. One area in which that hype really thrives, of course, is advertising. The author's overall argument, I think, encourages people to be skeptical of advertisers' claims, and in many ways he really is encouraging (most) people *not* to buy the latest gadgets. Let the early adopters adopt the fancy new toy, he says, and even when it does eventually become "tried and true," ask yourself whether you really need it. (I read in an interview that Seidensticker's PDA is a 3x5 notecard and a pencil.) So, essentially, he's advising consumers to take it easy and not be so worried about keeping up with the Joneses. His advice is timely for businesses and other institutions that need to make decisions about what to buy, as well.

I've been speaking somewhat abstractly so far, but the book is anything but abstract. This is one case where the delightfully colorful cover well represents the lively entertainment within. In addition to being a persuasive argument about technology and society, it's also chock-full of entertaining stories about technology and change from the last 20 years, the last century, the last thousand years, the last eight thousand years. One story that keeps making me smile is the one about the farmer who just couldn't believe that the telegraph could transfer a message faster than his team of horses--so he challenged the telegraphers to a race. He lost. Seidensticker's point is that new technologies have been delighting, scaring, and surprising people for a long, long time. So the book promotes a more educated and skeptical attitude toward technology, a more realistic perspective, and does so by taking time to entertain the reader with lots of fun stories. It reminded me quite a bit of Carl Sagan. (And is there any higher praise?)

Future Hype by Bob Seidensticker is an important book that everyone, from business owners to history majors, needs to read. How technology changes us, our world and our culture is very important. That means we have to see through the myths and find the facts. Do you wish to invest in the next great thing or the next failure? Do you want to understand why products fail or just waste your money on the next videophone?
Future Hype shows us the advantages and disadvantages of the rate of change and how some products really don't change anything. He attacks such myths as the idea that inventions are being created faster and that technology is inevitable.
His logic is very sound and he uses both modern examples and examples from history to support his reasoning. By the end of the book you will dismiss most of the hype and be a little better for it.

Seidensticker's offering in 'FUTURE HYPE' gives us a clearer look at how technology change really happens, its impact on society and how significantly technology has actually changed our lives - both on a business and personal level.

Weighing the real benefits against the hype, he asks us to consider the way things were done in the past to avoid 'technology infatuation'. Benefits of usable products produced by technology is the real measure of its worth, not the technology hype itself that we are seduced into buying.

He vaccinates us with an injection of cynicism so we can better anticipate the future and make more appropriate decisions to acquire useful technological purchases. "High Tech purchases must be held accountable, like any other purchase," he says. "Don't jump on the 'hype' bandwagon without good reason."

There is great benefit to heed Seidensticker's wisdom and experience in this very readable book. Carol Bentley, Author

This book has a compelling thesis and an especially rich store of anecdotes for anyone interested in the history of technology and social change.

I've wondered a lot lately why the 21st Century so far doesn't look like all brochures about it published in the 20th Century. I don't see flying cars, space colonies, swinging polaymorous relationships, guaranteed leisure and incomes, and radical life extension predicted for right about now by visionary futurist and science fiction writers popular in the '70's and '80's like Robert Heinlein, Robert Anton Wilson and F.M. Esfandiary. "FutureHype" provides some insight into why we've entered a period of relative technological stasis.

It is an interesting book that talks about the ways society sees technology. The audience for Future Hype: The Myths of Technology would be people who want to better understand technology change and how it influences their lives. It could serve as a guide to more ideal purchases. The book could also be helpful to business technology adopters, where technology needed for competitive advantage and cannot afford to make wrong decisions. Also, schools, organizations, and professionals who want to spend limited resources wisely.