It's easy for intellectuals to predict the wonderful things we might lose with the onset of a new technology, but they're generally wrong. TV, for example, hasn't really meant the death of writing. Good writing is by no means a lost art today, though it is often misplaced in the loveless flood of artless text that flows daily through our printed and electronic media. I, for one, am inclined to assume that multimedia computers and networks will no more mean the death of good writing than electronic music has meant the death of folk music. New media can enrich us and multiply our options without destroying the old. Let the curmudgeons have their say, I say, but be not intimidated. The future belongs to those who make it.
