Papyrus News

So I was thinking about this distinction we made in class between “automation” and “innovation,” and I was wondering if, perhaps, it was not so much a “distinction” as two markers on a developmental continuum that has as its origin “need.”  The way I see it automation is innovation—a “new way” of doing something—although innovation, clearly, does not have to be automation, nor, now that I think of it, does it (innovation) necessarily originate in need—the discovery of electricity being just one famous case in point.  Maybe what I am trying to say is that ICT seems to be situated somewhat between (mere) automation of already existing processes and (magical) discovery of entirely new ones—that it is at once connected to and unique from what came before it, but that it has real and practical (and new) uses in the world that are potentially transformative.  Of course, a good many of us still use computers principally to “type” text (automation), but how we type text has changed since we used, say typewriters (innovation), and this “change” is influential not only on the text itself, but also on us, the users (transformation).