Home / Robert Farley / The Future!

The Future!

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So apparently yesterday (or apparently not, but whatever; details…) was the day that Doc selected for his trip to the future at the end of the first Back to the Future. The series did a reasonable enough job of prediction (although these predictions are for 2015, rather than 2010), but in retrospect I think it missed out on the central transformation to occur between 1985 and 2010, which is the complete revolution in relationship between technology and information.

The iPhone and its kin aren’t precisely cinematic, but they do as well as any other technology in representing this transformation. Having Marty or Doc carry an iPhone back to 1955 or 1985 wouldn’t be visually impressive, but it’s remarkable what the technology could do even removed from its context. With the proper apps, any smart phone could play the same role as the sports almanac that drove the plot in Back to the Future II, and could also provide sufficient information about any other set of historical events worth caring about. It’s game playing capabilities would exceed those of any other handheld in 1985, and this is to say nothing of its ability to hold thousands of songs, podcasts, and movies.

Then again, the iPhone in 1985 is also a curtailed device; Marty could neither call anyone nor take advantage of the iPhone’s ability to connect to the internet. Detached from its technological context, the iPhone is powerful, but crippled. The BTF series actually did a reasonably good job of depicting this in the third film, where the Delorean proved useless without refined gasoline. Nevertheless, I think that the relationship between the iPhone and its context is more complicated, and more difficult to explain, than that of the Delorean. The iPhone is an interesting enough device in isolation, but its true power is only evident when it is connected with the modern information infrastructure. That infrastructure is very difficult to conceptualize if you’re not living in it; you don’t necessarily perceive the power to command instant information until you have it and lose it. But then, I suppose that all revolutions are difficult to understand unless you live through them.

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