Academic Bowl Study Guide Preface

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Preface: A Swiftly Texting
Planet
Resolved: that Hermione gets good grades because she doesn’t
waste time on the Internet. The Wizarding World has a lot going for
it: flying brooms, Quidditch, a rousing soundtrack. But it doesn’t
have telephones, or computers, or machine guns. When Voldermort
rises, no one in the Ministry of Magic suggests taking him out with an
unmanned drone.
Why not? Certainly, the Wizarding World understands product innovation.
Harry Potter lusts after a new Firebolt broom, and some bright inventor was behind the Knight Bus.
But the Wizarding World is marked more by the absence of cell phones than by the introduction of
quad-feather magic wands.
Fans of Harry Potter have debated this issue for years.
Where are the Muggle technologies? Some theorize that
magic makes devices like the smartphone and the light
bulb malfunction 1 . Others see it differently: they argue
that, thanks to magic, people just don’t need them in
their lives.
“Rowling left out technology so the
magic could breathe.”
- Anonymous Blogger
Quidditch players do need broomsticks, and they demand
new-and-improved models so they can win games more
easily. Wizards don’t need phones because they have owls,
and they don’t need guns because they have the cruciatus
curse.
The real world presents similar questions. Does technology
lurch forward of its own accord, stopping only when it
doesn’t work—like the zeppelin, which went down with the
Hindenburg? Or is the path of invention shaped by what
people are already looking for in their lives?
Future generations will remember 2011 as the year when the
revolution was tweeted. Protests across the Middle East were
sparked by social networking. Rioters in London used BBM 2
to coordinate acts of vandalism. Governments proved they
could play, too: China moved to pre-crush its own so-called
“Jasmine Revolution” by blocking online searches of the
word jasmine 3 , while San Francisco police tried to squelch
their own protesters by shutting down cell phone service in
subway tunnels.
Did the creators of Twitter intend for it to help unseat dictators? No. Did people embrace it because
it could? Perhaps, although it is more likely they just wanted a better way to follow the Kardashians.
1
Imagine what it would do to hotel room keycards.
2
The text messaging service on the soon-to-be-defunct Blackberry platform.
3
To the detriment of tea lovers everywhere.

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Mark Zuckerberg devised Facebook because people already wanted to know more about their friends
and classmates 4 . Facebook was a compelling new solution to an old problem. When Steve Jobs
announced the iPad in 2010, many analysts went “meh.” People, they said, didn’t need tablets—they
already had phones and laptops. Yet in two years Apple has sold over 60 million 5 .
In recent years researchers have probed the tangled
relationship between the tools we create, the world we live
in, and the people we become. These scholars of science,
technology, and society go beyond empty generalizations—
“The Internet changed everything!” They pose deeper
questions. Why did the wheel, so popular in Asia and the
Middle East, never take off 6 in the early Americas? 7 Does
growing up in front of a computer affect the way a person
views the world? How is it possible that, in the year 2012 8 ,
no one is commuting to school by jetpack or sharing
adventures with a wisecracking robot pal?
Addressing these questions means taking a closer look at
who shapes the inventions we use and at the conditions that help bring them about. It means
examining the technologies that have transformed our world and asking how much each was a
response to social changes and how much it contributed to those changes. It also means looking at
certain inventions we were told would revolutionize our lives—the Segway! Smell-O-Vision!
Microsoft Bob!—and figuring out why they never did.
4
Or stalk them.
5
Meh, indeed.
6
Or roll off, technically.
7
As opposed to the 1970s Scottish folk/rock band Stealers Wheel, which never caught on anywhere.
8
Eleven years since the Space Odyssey! We’ve got some catching up to do.