Choose Your Bicycle!

I’ve thought about the Internet for some time as a microcosm of society, and find the term “Information Ecology” a little interesting. The idea of the Internet providing a platform for evolving, and thus in some senses natural, communications is certainly becoming quite justifiable, given the increasingly large numbers of people who actively participate in and contribute to the online environment and the raft of social, email and messaging utilities that proliferate.

I find the term “ecology” too obscure in this context, however. Although a noun, ecology usually refers to the study of relationships, rather than the actual system of relationships. My mind can far more easily grasp the idea that the Internet provides an Information Ecosystem than that it gives us an Information Ecology. So, if it isn’t too presumptuous, I’d like to complete this task by referring to an Information Ecosystem.

The Internet primarily exists as a technological system to support human communications. That is, there is a symbiotic relationship between Man and the machines: Man relies on the machine-based tools to transfer and to process data that forms the information building blocks of human communications online, and the machine-based tools exist only because Man creates them with other types of data.

A further clarification is required: there is a fundamental difference between data and information. Data are facts, and in this case, the data can be as atomic as zeroes and ones. Information is the interpretation of that data into meaning. Computers deal only with data; however, programming can automate some data processing tasks so that machines can present the zeroes and ones as digestible information. But always remember that this processing has been controlled by the programmer, not the program of itself! This means that the machines and software comprising the Internet do play an important role in the Information Ecosystem, but it is always a mediated one.

This is a good distinction to keep in mind during communications. The fact reinforces that despite our reliance on machines to maintain and grow our Information Ecosystem, humans are actually still in the driver’s seat, so to speak. In this sense, the Ecosystem we are discussing is closer to being characterised by data exchange rather than communication - since machines can only compute one sand zeroes and have no ability to perceive meaning - yet “Information Ecosystem” is probably the most relevant description since computers are able, in the limited sense addressed above, to formulate data into consumable forms, or information. The upshot of this is that we need to take responsibility for how we communicate and for ensuring that communication is effective.

The paradox is that while we (or a subset of humankind) mediate the role that tools play, the software is still a heavy mediator of our information exchange experience. Our escape comes in the knowledge that when the mediation is detracting from, rather than enhancing, the experience, we are able to provide feedback to the software or network developers to gain incremental improvements in the tools and hence the experience. The tools have no such capacity: they exist and can only exist in the fashion in which we create them.

What excites me is the concurrent evolution that takes place as technologies develop and human communication needs, desires and abilities become more sophisticated. As more people come online, and communication between networks of people (rather than computers!) becomes more complex, advanced tools evolve to analyse, predict and facilitate these new uses of the Internet. Truly amazing possibilities open up: these are not driven by technology, but by the humans that recognise the potential of their technologies and adapt them to specific or general needs.