Will We Stop Reading by 2050? Evaluating the Forecast

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By Kalevi Rantanen

Abstract

The evaluation power of TRIZ is demonstrated by assessing claims that talking computers and non-text visual technologies will replace writing and reading. According to some futurists, written text will disappear by 2050. Seven evaluation criteria based on TRIZ are used for evaluation of the forecast. The results are counterintuitive.

Keywords

TRIZ, forecast, foresight, prediction, future

Forecasting the Future of Written and Oral Communication

The Futurist devoted a special section of its spring 2007 issue to the question of, are we approaching the "End of the Written Word?" The section was dedicated to the problem of literacy. Are we moving to a post-literate era? "By the year 2050 … all writing and reading will be replaced by speech and multi-sensory content," wrote William Crossman, one of the section’s contributors.² He has spoken for years of voice-in-voice-out (VIVO) computers that, he claims, will displace written text. "This will be a positive development," says Crossman. Peter Wagschal agrees that "there will be a time when illiterates can earn doctorates."¹¹

The idea that text and reading will come obsolete has been popular long time, almost from the invention of electronic communication. In 1899 H.G. Wells predicted in his novel Sleeper Wakes, how in the year 2100 the "telephone, kinematograph and phonograph had replaced newspaper, book, schoolmaster, and letter."¹²

Empirical Evidence

There is data that supports the claim that written word is gradually disappearing. In the U.S. especially, young people are reading less. In 1984, 31 percent of surveyed 17-year olds read "almost every day" for enjoyment; in 2004 only 22 percent did, according to the National Assessment of Education.¹⁰

The Futurist's analysis of the possible end of the written word also produced the following data:

• In 2005 the number of book titles in the U.S. dropped to 172,000, from 190,078 in 2004.
• The rest of the world follows the pattern. In the European Union countries the newspaper circulation has dropped by 5.26% for five years.4

Conversely, voice and video communication is exploding:

• More than two billion people use mobile telephones in the world.
• The number of YouTube’s visitors rose from 58,000 in 2005 to 20 million in 2007.¹¹

Using TRIZ to Evaluate Forecasts

Both sides of the debate seem to agree that literacy is fighting a losing battle. But is it? There are two reasons to check the forecast: 1) one feature of good science is that most obvious truths are regularly checked – intuition is not enough – and 2) the forecast of the future of reading has immediate and important practical consequences.

The stakes are high. If there is no need for reading and writing skills in the future, efforts to strengthen traditional education is a waste of time and money. But if schools teach only voice, video and image communication, and the foresight of the end of reading is incorrect, large problems will occur.

TRIZ provides forecasting tools; it also helps to evaluate predictions and decide what is likely to happen in the long run. The forecast can be evaluated by seven questions formed with the aid of TRIZ.⁷

1. Do the harmful features disappear?
2. Are the useful features retained? Will new benefits appear?
3. Will new harmful features appear?
4. Does the system become more complex?
5. Is the inherent, primary contradiction resolved?
6. Are idle, easily available, earlier ignored resources used?
7. Other criteria – does the claim comply with the pattern of increasing interactions?

Consider exclusively oral communication versus written text.

Do the harmful features disappear?

Yes, "we can drive a car or make a salad while listening," says Crossman says.⁵ The necessity of looking disappears.

Are the useful features retained? Will new benefits appear?

Certainly new benefits appear. Voices express emotions that can make a message stronger. By the same token, the useful features of text are retained, too.

Imagine searching a newspaper or book, or simply reading to see whether there is something interesting. A reader looks for headlines, otherwise highlighted important words and sentences, and then selects the needed, useful pieces of information. Imagine now that there are only voice and pictures. A "reader" can ask the smart voice book to go to the beginning of a particular chapter or to the middle of the story. Vocal commands could be convenient if the reader knows exactly where to go. If not, finding the right place may prove frustrating. Text is more convenient for general searching (e.g., quickly finding the important text in a page of newspaper). To get the same general idea from a voice, all of the text must be listened to.

Another advantage of text is that it supports memory. If a person listens to a sentence, she may forget the first words after hearing the last. If a voice message contains numbers, dates, names or other detailed information that needs to be understood exactly, it is often necessary to listen to it two or three times, and then write down the most important content.

"Although text and VIVOs also do the same general job – store and retrieve information – text has no advantage that will withstand the onslaught of the four ‘engines’ driving us into the VIVO age," writes Crossman.⁵ Those four engines are:

1. Evolutionarily/genetically, humans are driven to speak.
   • Yes, people are genetically prepared to speak, but they are prepared to read as well. Both speaking and reading are cultural skills. In isolation from other people a child will not learn to speak or read.
2. Technologically, humans are driven to develop technologies that allow us to access information by speaking.
   • Yes, but accessing information by speaking does not mean that humans correspondingly stop accessing it by reading.
3. Young people in the electronically-developed countries are, en masse, rejecting text as their technology of choice for accessing information in favor of speech-driven and non-text, visual-driven technologies.
   • Young people read and write text messages, read and write blogs and micro-blogs. They write and read emails. They print text from the Internet. They are not rejecting text.
4. The billions of functionally non-literate people worldwide want access to information without having to learn to read and write.
   • Certainly they want access to information, but where has it been proven that they do not want to learn to read and write? Voice-command electronics, videos and pictures are paving ways to literacy, not replacing text.

Will new harmful features appear?

Yes. For example, voice and video add emotions, which can be both useful and harmful.

Conference papers and scientific magazine articles are often double-blind reviewed. Knowledge of the voice, outer appearance and even a writer’s name can lead to undesirable biases.

Another problem of voice is obtrusiveness. In Emotional Design, author Donald A. Norman describes a typical situation: "I am always amused at business meetings by the sneaky, but skillful, use of text messaging. I watch otherwise serious, staid executives glance furtively down at they laps as to read screens and type responses, all the while pretending to be listening to the meeting."⁶

Does the system become more complex?

No. In the long run, voice and video communication will be as simple to use as text.

Is the inherent, primary contradiction resolved?

The contradiction of the text communication follows: We should have text to get information quickly and to avoid undesirable emotions. We should not have text to use our eyes for other purposes and to avoid struggle for learning to read and write.

The inherent contradiction is not resolved by pure oral communication. There is no alternative for all the benefits of reading and writing.

Are idle resources used?

New oral resources are used as since computers learn to listen and speak. Important visual resources are lost, however, if exclusively oral communication is required.

Other criteria – does the claim comply with the pattern of increasing interactions?

One of the patterns of evolution, the increase of interactions, is a good check of this forecast. The pattern of evolution of human communication shows that new actions have complemented old ones, not displaced them. Written text, telephone, email, video conference and other innovations have added to oral communication. The pattern implies that in the future, too, communication will be richer and broader, not narrower. There will be more interactions, not less.

One of the patterns of evolution, the increase of interactions, is a good check of this forecast. The pattern of evolution of human communication shows that new actions have complemented the old, not displaced them. Written text, telephone, email, video conference and other innovations have added to oral communication. The pattern implies that in the future, too, communication will be richer and broader, not narrower. There will be more interactions, not less.

According to an old story, French painter said, "From today painting is dead," upon seeing a Daguerreotype for the first time. There is no evidence that Delaroche said these words, but the story reflects the fact that many artists painting miniature portraits were worried about losing their market due to photography. But painting continues to flourish, peacefully coexisting with photography.

Evaluation Summary

Table 1 summarizes the forecast evaluation.

Table 1: Evaluation of Forecasted End of Reading7
Criteria	Evaluated Solution: Communication Without Text	Is the Evaluated Solution Good?
Do the harmful features disappear?	Yes	Yes
Are the useful features retained? Will new benefits appear?	No	Yes
Will new harmful features appear?	Yes	No
Does the system become more complex?	No	No
Is the inherent, primary contradiction resolved?	No	Yes
Are idle, easily available, earlier ignored resources used?	Yes	Yes
Other criteria – does the claim comply with the pattern of increasing interactions?	No	Yes

Four answers did not match the criteria of a good solution. Consequently, communication without text did not pass the test.

Understanding the Empirical Findings

What about the earlier introduced empirical evidence?

1. Statistics citing the decline of written word often ignores the fact that text can be electronic, too.
   • Young people are reading and writing text messages, blogs and micro-blogs. Thanks to technological innovations, people who were unlikely to write conventional letters are now obsessive writers. The digital revolution enhanced not only oral and visual production, but desktop publishing as well. People are making small circulation books.
2. The time factor remains. It can be argued that reading texts on screens is a short-lived, transitional technology. Will electronic texts, too, soon be replaced by voice and video messages?
   • Even if people are abandoning reading, that does not mean that hasty conclusions should be made. The Portuguese introduced firearms to Japan in 1543. "Within a decade, Japan had more guns per capita than any other country in the world, and by the year 1600 Japan had the best guns of any country in the world," noted historian Jared Diamond.² But Japan gradually abandoned firearms. When U.S. Naval Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Japan during the 1840s, the Japanese discovered that guns are superior to swords in large-scale combat – they had thrown away a powerful technology.

Conclusion

The forecast that oral communication will displace written communication is wrong. This is not a situation of either/or, but of both/and. Since written text and vocal communication have complementary advantages and disadvantages, the most simple – and obvious – solution for the future is multimedia communication.

References

1. Crossman, William, "Voice-In/Voice-Out Computers and the Postliterate Era," The Futurist, March-April 2007, pp. 27-28.
2. Diamond, Jared, "How to Get Rich: A Talk," http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/diamond_rich/rich_p5.html, page 5, accessed November 14, 2007.
3. Luttwak, Ernest, "The Fall of the Word, and Civilization," The Futurist, March-April 2007, p. 28.
4. Naisbitt, John, "The Postliterate Future," The Futurist, March-April 2007, pp. 24-26.
5. Crossman, William, VIVO [Voice-In/Voice-Out], synopsis at http://www.compspeak2050.org/Pages/Book.html, accessed November 6, 2007.
6. Norman, Donald, Emotional Design, Basic Books, New York USA. 2004.
7. Rantanen, Kalevi and Domb, Ellen, Simplified TRIZ: New Problem Solving Applications for Engineers & Manufacturing Professionals, CRC St. Lucie Press, Boca Raton Florida USA. 2002.
8. Rantanen, Kalevi, "Predicting the Future with TRIZ," The TRIZ Journal, March 2007.
9. Rantanen, Kalevi, "Predicting Innovations for the Years 2020-2060," The TRIZ Journal, June 2007.
10. Tucker, Patrick, "The New Media Age," The Futurist, March-April 2007, pp. 28-29.
11. Wagschal, Peter, "Illiterates with Doctorates, Revisited," The Futurist, March-April 2007, pp. 28-29.
12. Wells, H.G., When the Sleeper Wakes, Chapter XIV, accessed via The Project Gutenberg Etext, http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/wtslw11.txt.

About the Author:

Kalevi Rantanen worked in Finnish youth organizations, primarily on problems of education, in the 1970s. From 1979-1985, he studied in the former USSR and earned his M.Sc in mechanical engineering and was introduced to TRIZ. Rantanen worked in Finnish industry until 1991, while also a TRIZ trainer. Since 1991, he has been an independent entrepreneur and has concentrated on science and technology journalism since 2002. Contact Kalevi Rantanen at kalevi.rantanen (at) kolumbus.fi.