News Health: Faster and Faster

Happy Sunday,

“The Lord is my shepherd; I have what I need. He lets me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters.”

Psalm 23:1-2

The news keeps getting faster
When the King of England dies, I will likely know within minutes, even if he dies in England while I’m out for a run in Iowa. 

That is incredible. 

If it were 75 years ago, I’d hear the news within a day or two: the news would travel via phone call from Europe to the U.S., be shared with journalists who write up the details, proofed, printed, and tossed on my driveway. If it were 200 years ago, I’d hear about it months or years later… if at all. The news would sail over from Europe to the U.S., then likely be carried via wagons from the East Coast to the not-yet-a-state of Iowa. (Be sure to add some buffer time, in case the messengers get dysentery.)

It’s tempting to think that learning this news faster is only a benefit. But when you increase the speed at which information can travel, it also changes what information is sent. 

Before TPO, I spent two years helping build a 5G wireless network, which enables data to travel up to 100 times faster than 4G. The primary sales pitch for 5G wasn’t that it would make existing things better, but that it would make entirely new things possible: augmented reality, remote patient monitoring, autonomous driving, etc. These things simply weren’t possible with 4G—like inviting someone to a party tonight in a letter that arrives tomorrow. Until you can send that invite faster, it’s not even worth sending.

Well, we can now send the invite faster, and the result isn’t simply that I will be alerted sooner when the King of England dies… I now also learn if he trips walking up the stairs, or rolls his eyes at a reporter, or changes his holiday plans.

Here’s your homework: imagine the news still operated as it did 75 years ago. How would your life be different if you had less news, and the news you did get was delivered once a day, summarizing things that happened yesterday or the day before?

What do you think?
Jason Woodruff

Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe here.