Twits, Twitter, and Tweets

by Tom Bethell

I've been thinking about the huge hi-tech changes that have taken place since I first wrote for The American Spectator. That was in, oh, 1976. Very few people at the time realized just how far reaching the transformation would be-although I suspect that George Gilder did. We still don't know how disruptive the changes will be because they haven't stopped yet. But one indicator is that major news institutions like the New York Times are in jeopardy. The digital revolution is like an express train taking us to an unknown destination.

I hate to use the much overused word revolutionary, but as applied to the new technology it is appropriate. Its impact on society may well be comparable to that of the printing press, or the Industrial Revolution.

It was in the early 1980s that everyone you knew began talking about word processors. "What program do you use?" Names like WordStar and WordPerfect filled the air. How great it was, people said. You could rearrange the order of your paragraphs. I refused to join the crowd, smugly replying that paragraphs were rightly ordered the first time. Then in 1987 I started to use a computer myself. The Hoover Institution, which I have been fortunate enough to visit over the years, had a mainframe system. It was swept away years ago and may already be in a museum. But it was a revelation to me. Overnight, rewriting became not just easier but an actual pleasure...  Read the whole article.