That’s right. Last week, Nicola Mendelsohn, a vice president at Facebook, suggested that statistics showed that the written word becoming all but obsolete, replaced by moving images and speech. She added that in five years time Facebook “will be definitely mobile, it will be probably all video.” (She didn’t cite the origin of her data.)
So does this mean that five years from now I’ll have to record rather than type all my e-mails? Does this mean that my business prospects will have to sit through a four-minute proposal that they could have scanned in 60 seconds of text. Does this mean the notes I write to my wife while traveling will have to be uploaded to Facebook?
Then there’s comprehension. During her remarks, Mendelsohn argued that, “The best way to tell stories in this world, where so much information is coming at us, actually is video. It conveys so much more information in a much quicker period.” So quantity is more important than quality? Tell that to the brain researchers who have determined that retention and comprehension of knowledge is markedly better when read than heard. Tell that to the readers who savor the details of an exquisitely written novel.
Processing information is a tiny element of the equation that eventually produces wisdom. Sadly, information continues to expand exponentially while wisdom seems to be shrinking. Reading requires effort. It expands your vocabulary. Frankly, it slows you down so that the brain is able to absorb and process the key concepts.
Video, on the other hand, requires little effort. You don’t even have to turn the page. Sure the brain absorbs it, but at such a pace that little is processed. No process, no learning? No learning, no knowledge. No knowledge, no smarts. Isn’t that why they used to call television the “boob tube?”
Before taking predictions like this seriously, we might want to consider the current struggles of Twitter and Linked-In and others that all set out to be the world’s answer to communication. So before assuming the demise of the written world, these Facebook kings and queens might want to consider what could be eating their lunch in five years time. Ah, the arrogance of youth.