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| As this trade-off continues, it will produce profound changes in the home. The two major visions of the home of the future can be linked to the two major scenarios of the emerging information society: the telematique, based on television, and the privatique, based on telephony. In the former, a few huge sources beam information at millions of receivers; in the latter, we are all sources and receivers within a complex network of communicating nodes. Those two options are nicely symbolized by the two wires to the telephone receiver and the television set, which link the home to the rest of the world. The dark vision of those who predict the telematique scenario is that of the home as an enclave where the fortress family shelters from an essentially hostile environment. It is a womb for a few with a view. The view is provided by a video screen - a window into the outside world - which enables information, goods, and services to be delivered through the umbilical cord of the television cable. Those who argue for the privatique scenario have a more optimistic vision of the home as an electronic cottage, linked to neighbours around a world which has been technology-shrunk to a global village. The possibility of living in an electronic cottage, where learning and playing and working (which had been sub-contracted out to contractual relationships) could once again take place within the home promises a rosy future for the family. Advocates of the electronic cottage point to the advantage of saving wear and tear on our internal and external environments. They also point to the fact that it is often paradoxically easier to work at home than to work in the office, ostensibly designed for work. In some offices, the distractions of visitors, in person or by phone, make concentration very difficult. |
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