REBECCA E SPITZER

I’ve just read the introduction to Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mobs, and I was amazed by how spot-on his analysis is. The book was published in 2003, but it describes our world so clearly that it could have been published yesterday.

Rheingold writes about his observation of the growth of “texting” as a new means of communication; he notes that everyone seems to be looking at their phones instead of talking into them. The conclusion is made that the growth of mobile Internet will increase the importance of our mobile phones, bringing every piece of information we might need into our palms. Ironically, I took a break from reading the piece to pick up a call and to check my Facebook, both on my iPhone.

This current vision of iPhones and Android-powered devices was a legitimate hypothesis for the future 10 years ago. What’s so funny to me is that our current legitimate hypotheses for the future are comprised of what used to be true scifi and fantasty- appliances that talk to each other and surfaces embedded with giant glass computer screens, everything communicating wirelessly. All that seems to be missing is flying cars, but since it’s become obvious that the car industry is lagging a bit these days, I’m not surprised. Seriously, the future we’re moving into is a legitimate version of Minority Report meets The Fifth Element meets The Jetsons.

At any rate, I was inspired by Rheingold’s introduction; it conjured up visions of my cell phone morphing into an epic remote control with the immense power to deliver me every miniscule piece of information about everything (and everyone) on the planet. His discussion of the pros and cons of this social networking is powerful, and we have already seen the manifestations of much of it (consider Iran this summer).

I just wish he had published something more recently; I’m off now to watch his TED talk, but it’s from 2005. I’m also following him on Twitter, but it’s not yielding much. I’m more interested in what he has to say ABOUT twitter than what he’s saying on twitter, if that makes sense. No upset here, though; I respect Social Mobs enough to leave it at that and walk away pleased.

… and what does this have to do with journalism, you ask? It has everything to do with journalism, because journalism is the democratic act of bringing information from citizens to other citizens. And that is exactly what the social mobs revolution is doing.