Alexa Pattek

Art85

Internet vs Printing Press

Abstract

Which came first the chicken or the egg? This question conjures up the argument of what was more significant or essential, the vehicle in which the subject came to grow or the subject that gives life to the vehicle. This argument can easily transition to the topic at hand of which advent had a bigger impact on the world, the printing press or the Internet. Throughout history, inventions have constantly been changing the world and how the people within it operate, some having larger impacts than others. Two extremely important inventions of their times have been that of the printing press, and the Internet. These two inventions, although brought about in completely different time periods, have had huge impacts on the world in the areas of education, history, communication and many others. Both of these inventions can be held interchangeable because without the vehicle of the printing press allowing the art of typography to introduce curves and production, where would the creating of emails, web and post scripts be? While the printing press began the revolution of the written word, the Internet came about and transformed the means of communication entirely.

What Had a Bigger Impact On The World?

Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1450 was, without a doubt, a world-changing discovery. It changed the lives of people through the new way to spread knowledge. Prior to the printing press, all books were handwritten; taking extreme amounts of time and effort, which caused them to be highly expensive and unaffordable to most people. This caused for a very low education rate throughout the world. The people who were lucky enough to be educated, were given very few books to learn from. If that didn’t make education scarce enough all the books were written in Latin, allowing very little knowledge to spread due to the fact that not everyone knew the Latin language. When the printing press was finally invented it was stated that, “Gutenberg’s press could produce books quickly and with relatively little effort, bookmaking became much less expensive, allowing more people to buy reading material” (Renaissance – Printing and Thinking). As a result of this, the common person had access to any information. Not only were books more frequently available, but also this made them cheaper to produce, allowing for different books to be in the language of the nation, making them readable by anyone who was literate.

“Although most of the earliest books dealt with religious subjects, students, businessmen, and upper and middle class people bought books on all subjects. Printers responded with moralizing, medical, practical and travel manuals. Printing provided a superior basis for scholarship and prevented the further corruption of texts through hand copying. By giving all scholars the same text to work from, it made progress in critical scholarship and science faster and more reliable” (Kreis). Not only was a huge variety of information now more frequently available for all people, but also it was more dependable. Handwritten texts were limited, making it easy for writers back then to use false information without the risk of being double-checked. With the discovery of the printing press, people now had access to written works in all subjects, so if they cam across any false information, it was easy to find.

While all of these impacts from the printing press were revolutionary and completely changed the way the world spreads information and generates, it is not necessarily the greatest impact of all. Although it was the first invention to spread information in a quicker and easier way, when the Internet was designed it was to do exactly that, but superior. It has had the same impact that of the printing press, however a lot stronger and more efficient.

Similar to the intentions of the printing press, the Internet was originally invented as a way of quicker communication. While the printing press had a large impact for its time in the spread of information, the Internet blew it away with the new speed that information could be passed on. While the printing press allowed for more people to get educated and gain knowledge, it could not exceed what the Internet could do. It was impossible with the printing press to send a book to different people around the world in seconds. However the Internet makes these kinds of things possible. Not only has it had a greater impact through its speed, but also through the possibility of sharing information with many people at the same time, throughout the world, within seconds.

While the Internet has had a huge impact on the spread of knowledge and information, it has not stopped there, while the printing press has. The Internet had the impact to connect people worldwide. Along with making information easily available to all people, it has also made it available without even leaving the home. Information can be found instantly without even moving from your seat. Instead of writing a letter and waiting days for a response, e-mail has made it possible to receive letters within minutes of sending. Even better than that, video chat makes it possible to speak to and see people on the other side of the world as if they were sitting in the room with you. This has truly made an impact on long distance family members, businesses and even different clients.

The Internet has also had benefits in saving time as well as money. Online shopping makes shopping much less time consuming. Not only can you make a purchase without leaving your home, but also you can find which website has the best product for the best price quick and easily. Online banking saves time enormously and also reduces the stress of having to make it to the bank in time. It has even made it possible for people to work from home, eliminating traveling time and commuter costs, and increasing flexibility. Also, “office running costs and overheads (rates, electricity, heating etc.) can be reduced, which in turn may reduce the need for office space” (History of the Internet).

­Although both innovations are important to our society, the beginning of the Internet had a much greater impact since it was able to affect a much wider range of people. The Internet only exists as a result of the path that the printing press carved for it. The printing press increased the literacy of the entire world by making books produced in mass quantities for less money. However this impact was not seen immediately it took a very long time for this to happen, making the full impact of the printing press not seen for centuries. Where the impact of the Internet was almost instantaneous. Not only was it very quickly and widely available in comparison to the printing press but when people were finally able to access it, they were able to take full advantage since they already had the proper skill set to use it. As a result, the Internet had a much greater impact, not only for its quicker and easier spread of information, but because of all of the other aspects of life that it has impacted as well. While the printing press had a limiting effect on the world of information, the effect of the Internet is infinite and not stopping anytime soon.

Works Cited

Kreis, Steven. “The Printing Press”. The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European

Intellectual History. 13 October 2014 http://historyguide.org/intellect/press.html

“Renaissance – Printing and Thinking”. Annenberg Media. 13 October 2014

http://www.learner.org/interactives/renaissance/printing.html

“History of the Internet”, Internet Society. 13 October 2014

http://www.internetsociety.org/internet/what-internet/history-internet13 October 2014

Internet vs. Printing Press

Throughout human history, there have been inventions and discoveries that have fundamentally changed the way we live. The lightbulb, the telegraph, the book, the printing press, the turing machine, the computer, to name a few. Yet arguably none of these have been as significant and impressive in scope and influence than the dominant one in our world today, the internet.

The internet began out of the need to share and store identical information in many places to protect sensitive knowledge from destruction in times of war. The United States military began to develop a system of computers to store and share information and research known as ARPANET. Advancements were made, creating packet switching technology, or splitting data into small parts for easy and assured transfer, and the concept of a distributed network powered by individual nodes, allowing for the distribution of data over a longer distance and with more security. Advancements like these coupled with an increase in computing power allowed the internet to grow rapidly. Spreading to the University of California Los Angeles, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, and other elite schools around the country, and eventually into our very living rooms, where it resides today.

The reason why the internet is such a grand achievement when placed next to human inventions of the past is less about the physical information being transmitted, of which most could likely be distributed as effectively by literature and film, and more about the speed at which this mechanism has grown and its user research capabilities. The flexibility of internet protocol technology and its ability to spread rapidly from small local area networks to a world wide phenomenon permeating every aspect of personal and professional life is unprecedented. In about 25 years, the internet has become a world-wide, mass scale system for storing and viewing information, and growing every second with our ever-evolving plunge into new, more capable technologies. The printing press and the concept of movable typed, by comparison, had been invented centuries before it was even discovered in Europe, far less widely accepted and utilized. Surely this growth has something to do with our advanced capabilities for international travel in modern times. But nevertheless, somehow all manner of cultural, religious, and doctrinal beliefs tend to quickly step aside in favor of internet adoption around the world, certainly this is not usually the case with new inventions. Even strictly religious, radical insurgent groups have picked up on the power of the internet and are now using social media marketing tools to spread their message globally. The growth of the internet seems to know no bounds, enabling any person with some basic computer knowledge and a machine in their living room to view and contribute to the world’s encyclopedia, for better or for worse. The internet has given people around the world access to life saving information in seconds, spread the seeds of revolution and political uproar, and provided people with a relentless stream of the consciousness from the general public (thanks, Twitter). Its power and influence is as far reaching as any information infrastructure we have ever built. The information presented, while some of it highly polarized and just blatantly untrue, is generally outweighed by sources that are either equally biased in the opposite direction, offsetting some of the ridiculousness, or fairly reasonable and trustworthy. Creating a world wide community of activists, innovators, intellectuals and unfortunately, a wide variety of morons. But identifying and squashing stupidity is information exchange nonetheless.

The unprecedented size of the internet coupled with its ease of use has plagued regulators with a unique problem. Never in the history of the world have so many been able to speak out and spread ideas so quickly and easily. You see, even with the invention of the printing press, most information distribution was reserved for wealthy aristocrats and powerful clerics. Even when books were widely published and distributed there were editors and publishing houses keeping at least some of the utterly ridiculous content at bay. But the internet is difficult enough to maintain, and near impossible to police in its current state. Therefore, the information floodgates have finally opened, and the result is terrifyingly beautiful, allowing us to put a finger on the world’s pulse like never before.

The internet is not only more grand in scope and scale than the printing press and all other forms of information infrastructure before it, it is also fundamentally different from an operational standpoint because of the way the information is consumed. Because of the use of computers as terminals, the internet has unique capabilities for performing user research on a massive scale. Never before have we had an informational resource capable of fundamentally understanding and recording actions and knowledge transfer in the way the internet is able to. For example, consider for a moment that the internet does not exist. You hand someone a book, provided that person reads this book, lets assume that they now know what you know from reading that book. You have in effect shared knowledge. This sharing of knowledge is how most learning occurred throughout history until quite recently. The limitation of this system is that it is not very effective when it comes to revising this information, analyzing where it came from and why it is here, who is looking at it, and who might want to have access to it in the future. This is where the internet shines. An unbelievable amount of information is stored about you every time you make a request to a web address. This information is then compiled, stored, and later used in conjunction with other information previously stored about you to build a profile of your interests, and then target you as a member of a specific audience or focus group. Many people think of this and immediately see devious plans thought up by clever marketing professionals set to sell you some product that you hardly need. Much of this is true as marketing companies are most definitely using this to market effectively and increase their ROI’s. But this capability, when used for more proper and ‘morally just’ reasons, is quite fascinating. Let’s say you are a scientist, seeking research on a complex chemistry problem you have been working on. While searching for answers, you have built up a search query that resembles someone clearly well versed in the sciences. Search engines can now analyze that data and suggest scholarly papers that you are likely to be interested in and able to interpret and utilize, perhaps furthering your research or creating a more efficient operation at your laboratory. Definitely something no amount of books or printed material will ever be able to do for you.

Never before have we had an infrastructure not only so capable of sharing information, but retrieving and storing information about those who are consuming it as well. The ability of the internet to self-sustain, rapidly grow, and store information has blasted this communication system far past all else before it. The fundamental Input/Output model that computers are based on has afforded us the power of personal data storage and user research currently being demonstrated every day by this seemingly limitless form of communication we call the internet.

Discuss the impact created globally, culturally and economically by the invention of the printing press versus the Internet. Reading will be Vannevar Bush’s “As We May Think”. Students will be asked to be strong in rhetoric and writing style. The papers must have an opinion and that opinion will not be judged as incorrect but more so on the facts presented. We then present in class and discuss the viewpoints of the students.

Outline

Title Page – with course number

Abstract – purpose of paper – To discuss the impact of the Printing Press or the Internet? – 100 words

1st Section – Historical background of both the Printing Press and the Internet – 300 words

2nd Section – What was the impact of the Printing Press and the Internet? – 500 words

3rd Section – Using the research links below provide facts to support your position – 400 words

Conclusion – Your personal opinion from your observations and research – 200 words

Bibliography

Research links

“As We May Think” link click here

On the economy – 

McKinsey – 

Impact on Education – 

Internet and Printing Press – 

Due Date: 10/26/18