NPR This article is print ready and will remain available for 24 hours | Instructions for saving VIRTUAL REALITY FUTURE GETS MIXED REACTIONS - MORNING EDITION August 21, 1995 ALEX CHADWICK, Host: Even though personal computers are not yet in every home they sometimes seem to be on nearly everyone's mind. Surfing the Internet and E-mail are common activities for a growing number of Americans, but what inspires some, horrifies others and this summer pop culture is focusing on the dark side of the virtual future. NPR's Brooke Gladstone reports. BROOKE GLADSTONE, Reporter: Every generation spawns its Luddites, those who see a new technology a threat to their well-being, to the natural order of things. Technology's most spectacular opponent today is the terrorist known only as the Unabomber, who wrote that the technophiles are taking us all on an utterly reckless ride into the unknown. There can be no compromise between freedom and technology, he declares. Of course, that's not the majority view, says Richard Saul Worman [sp], author of Information Anxiety. RICHARD SAUL WORMAN, Author, `Information Anxiety': We have one Unabomber, that's all. There's not thousands of copycat Unabombers. I don't think everybody's so angry about it. There is the sense that it has improved their life. I mean, our cars are filled with computers. You know, there's about 12 computers of some sort or another in my kitchen. Well, all the stuff has something in it, right? I don't think people want that to go away. BROOKE GLADSTONE: But the computer in your microwave is domesticated. The computer range to cyberspace seems uncontrollable. NARRATOR: [excerpt of trailer for `Virtuosity'] In this high-tech crime-prevention facility one man has been recruited to play a simulated game. The objective? To hunt down the ultimate virtual reality killer, Sid 6.7. There's only one problem. The computer changed the program. Now he's in the real world. BROOKE GLADSTONE: There have been some scary movies this summer in which the soul of the new machine is revealed as depraved and nearly omnipotent. In the film Virtuosity, a murderous computer program schemes its way off the monitor and into the world of you and me. In The Net, a single gifted hacker manages to defeat computer terrorists bent on world domination through the control of information. SANDRA BULLOCK: [excerpt from `The Net'] Our whole world is sitting there on a computer. It's in the computer. Everything. Your- your DMV records, your- your Social Security, your credit cards, your medical history. It's all right there. Everyone is stored in there. It's like this little electronic shadow on each and every one of us just begging for somebody to screw with it, and you know what? They've done it to me, and you know what? They're going to do it to you. BROOKE GLADSTONE: The twin issues of privacy and control have spurred calls for government intervention, but if the cyberworld holds risks it's also chock full of marketable benefits, and Madison Avenue wants to convince the consumer there's nothing to fear. 2ND NARRATOR: [excerpt of NYNEX commercial] How does cyberspace fit into an average family's day, if at all? Here's a family that's so average their name is Smith. Like most families they burn the toast, take out the garbage- BROOKE GLADSTONE: In this commercial, produced by Ogilvy & Mather for the NYNEX telephone company, an ordinary family is shown burning the toast and then reading the mail by computer, doing the dishes and shopping for clothes, by computer, and so on. So simple, so normal. ACTOR: [excerpt of NYNEX commercial] This is cyberspace? To me it just looks like push a button, get stuff you want. BROOKE GLADSTONE: Lori Pollack [sp] worked on the NYNEX commercial. LORI POLLACK, Ogilvy & Mather: You don't have to give people a lot of stimulus to get them talking about how much they hate technology. It's right there under the surface. A lot of it has to do with terminology. I think when it's phrased as something useful, people are interested in it. When it's phrased as technology for its own sake, people are antagonized by it. BROOKE GLADSTONE: But the principal convenience of computer services is that they allow you to stay at home. In The Net, the movie, the lonely hacker spends her days in front of a screen, working, reading her mail, chatting with cyber pals, ordering pizza, actually not unlike the NYNEX family, and she's very nearly destroyed by a terrorist because her neighbors in the real world don't know who she is. CLIFFORD STAHL, Astronomer: If you spend three hours prowling around the Internet, that's three hours that you aren't talking with neighbors, hanging around with friends, digging in the garden. My concern with this virtual universe is that it's a weak substitute for the real thing. BROOKE GLADSTONE: Clifford Stahl [sp], astronomer and one-time computer enthusiast, argues with the zeal of the recovered addict in his book, Silicon Snake Oil. The virtual world, he believes, eats through the precious hours of life like a rat through a wire, and advertisers who take the public pulse see a potential sale in that sentiment. 2ND ACTOR: [excerpt of Volkswagen commercial] I've got gigobytes, I've got megabytes, I'm voice- mailed, I'm E-mailed, I surf the 'Net, I'm on the Web. I am Cyber Man. So how come I feel so out of touch? BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is a commercial for Volkswagen, the point being that rolling down the highway feels a lot better, a lot realer, than life online. Steve Wilhite [sp] works for Volkswagen. He says the new ads are a big hit. STEVE WHILHITE, Volkswagen: The ads connect because they're so real. Our products specifically are about connecting you to the world around you, to feeling the world around you, so that you're an active participant, not a spectator. BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ron Lawner [sp] is the ad man behind the V.W. spot. RON LAWNER, Created Volkswagen Ads: Yeah, where we're coming from is that most of us in our day-to-day lives are- are surrounded by technologies that, although well-intentioned, seem to isolate us from the windows that can't open your office to the E-mail you communicate with without really ever hearing a human voice, as opposed to the experience of driving a Volkswagen. BROOKE GLADSTONE: This ad promises to deliver you out of isolation into a world you can understand. In cyberspace, people can lose their sense of place. Richard Worman, author of Information Anxiety. RICHARD WORMAN: I'm sitting here in Newport, Rhode Island. In my mind is the relaxation of knowing where I am, where I am in Rhode Island, where I am in New England, and where I am in the United States, and where the United States is in the world. That's all comforting because you have this sense of positioning. You would really know it if it wasn't there. You know it when you go to a city that you've never been to before, and you land in the airport you don't know if you're north, east, south, or west of the city and how far it is. When we get lost we hate it. We are angry at ourselves, which is the worst kind of anger. (INTERIOR OF @ CAFE) BROOKE GLADSTONE: The @ Cafe [sp] in New York's East Village provides a guide to that unfamiliar territory in the form of a host who helps the uninitiated log on. It's a place where flesh meets wire, where people come in, order a beer, and talk with others across the table or around the world. The technology here is audio and visual. The images of people all over the country shift like a pack of slowly slipped snapshots across the screen. The names they go by in cyberspace appear next to their images. A group of young men sit in front of a screen of small faces. [interviewing] Who are these people? COMPUTER OPERATOR: They're all over. Do you want to ask them? BROOKE GLADSTONE: [interviewing] And can all these people hear me? COMPUTER: Uh-huh. 2ND COMPUTER OPERATOR: They all can. BROOKE GLADSTONE: [interviewing] Are- are you Bat Woman? BAT WOMAN: Yes I am. BROOKE GLADSTONE: Bat Woman from Cincinnati concedes that wired conversation is addictive. She knows people who engage in it 24 hours a day, but she doesn't. BAT WOMAN: You know, you got to balance your virtual life along with your real life, you know? It's like drinking alcohol, doing sports, stuff like that. You have to use it in moderation and lead a well- balanced life. (SKATEBOARDERS PASSING BY) BROOKE GLADSTONE: Outside the cafe, on St. Mark's Place in the real world, teenagers with checkered hair are skateboarding in the dark. Once a long time ago I heard about a professor at MIT who, when asked about his work outside the university, in the real world, always would answer, `None of these worlds is quite real.' In which case the Internet is just another world among worlds and, in the words of the cyber sage, everything in moderation. This is Brooke Gladstone in New York. Copyright ©1990-2004 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information, please contact NPR's Permissions Coordinator at (202) 513-2000.