Whenever you write about „The Future,“ I want you to remember this text. A text for everyone who works professionally in the media and uses the word future.
In the following text, I will try to explain why we have been talking about the future incorrectly, why more precise language is more important today than ever, and how to do it right.
Diesen Text auf Deutsch lesen.
The Verge, one of the most significant American tech publications, and Vox Media, owner of The Verge, have jointly released a survey. In it, they try to get to the bottom of the feeling that has become more imminent due to the accelerating change of social media (X anyone?). 2,000 U.S. adults confirm: More and more people distrust large platforms. More private digital communities are preferred.
So far, so predictable. Anyone who has been involved with social media for a longer time is once again confirmed in what we somehow already knew. You can read the article here (→).
I mention the article less for the topic. My criticism is directed at the way the authors of the survey summarize the results:
- In the title: „The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences“
- In the middle: „The future of community is personal, intentional, and built on trust.“
- In the last point of their list of results: „Smaller, purpose-driven communities are the future.“
I’ll play the future police here and issue a digital traffic ticket: Two points on the Time Regulatory Authority’s (allusion to the TVA from the Marvel Cinematic Universe) traffic account. Because that’s not how journalists should talk about the future. While they were still a bit restrained in the headline and used the word „likely,“ they simply omit it later.
And where’s the problem?
If you’re wondering where the problem is, that’s understandable. Because basically, they write like everyone writes. No error recognizable. Especially since it’s so much easier to sell. That doesn’t make the use any better and, as part of the attention economy, is system-typical and extremely problematic.
→ The first point is for deriving a trend from too few data points.
→ The second point is for using the term „The Future.“
The Verge is making it too easy here. Even though the trend of „Dark Social“ has been around for a long time, that’s by no means clear proof that it will stay that way or that it will intensify. It also completely ignores the question of whether that should be the case at all.
The use of the term „The Future“ is simply wrong. Futurologists speak of futures, and for good reason. There is not one future. Physicists would even go so far as to say that time doesn’t even exist. It is not a measurable force in nature, it is nothing that can be measured like energy or matter. Physicists use time as a loop variable. Time is a mathematically necessary invention to describe a process. What is measured with the clock is not time, but a rhythm that we as humanity have agreed on (and which makes sense due to our movement around the sun). There is no force behind it, except for the mechanics in the case of a mechanical clock itself. A clock is not a sensor for a natural phenomenon.
Nevertheless, there is an imaginable space of possibilities that lies before us in time. It is a space full of ideas of something that is somehow conceivable. We call these conceivable scenarios futures.
And yet so many speak of the future. Why?
If I communicate in an interest-driven way, for example because I’m a politician or because I want to sell my product, then I try to limit the imaginable possibilities to those that are useful to me.
That’s how it comes about that someone who has a blockchain startup writes quite naturally on LinkedIn: Blockchain is the future. This not only ignores other possibilities. The way it is said also makes the speaker overbearing. He thinks he knows exactly what the future of all people is, as if everyone should not determine what their life looks like. So you have no choice. And if this is not seen through by the recipients, there is even fear of missing out. The technical term for this is Future Appropriation. An unauthorized overbearingness that really does no one any good. Unless there are unfair intentions.
Let’s go back to The Verge’s survey. So if the authors here speak of smaller, closed communities being the future, they are being invasive, because they can’t possibly know if that will really happen. If they know that this will not happen, but want to manipulate, this is unacceptable from a journalistic point of view.
There is another possibility of what The Verge might have meant by speaking of The Future. They believe that this future is socially desirable. Then this should also be made understandable accordingly. This can be achieved, for example, by a formulation like this: „We, the authors, believe that the trend back to smaller, curated communities is a positive trend that is desirable.“ In doing so, they commit themselves to a future from the whole bouquet of futures, without negating the others and unfairly limiting the space of possibilities.
But even here it can be done a little better. It is even better to not only commit to one of the futures and make this clear linguistically, but also to justify it. And it would be really good if other futures were also discussed and weighed. In this way, the reader could get a better picture of it.
The article could therefore contain something like this: „From the survey, we authors conclude that the trend towards ever smaller, curated communities could be permanent. Smaller communities have several advantages: They can be moderated more easily, there is less friction, as people tend to exchange ideas with like-minded people, which makes them less toxic. This seems to be the most obvious development at the moment, although it cannot be ruled out that this will change in the short or medium term. Whether this is the best development in the bouquet of futures, we cannot currently determine. However, the editors have no doubt that something needs to be done on the web and especially on the social web.“
Indeed, the question of what would actually be morally desirable is a very good question that I would like to encourage journalists to ask. First, however, they should objectively classify the results of surveys and studies. A link to the study data is also missing in our example.
Conclusion
We have learned: Anyone who writes professionally for the public cannot actually write about „The Future“ in good conscience without being accused of being invasive (keyword „Future Appropriation“) or negligent and sloppy. Quotes and interviews in which someone speaks of The Future need inquiries and corrections here and cannot simply be published. In order to be able to do this, media professionals need Future Literacy, future competence, without which responsible publishing is no longer conceivable. The lobby of invasive future apologists is too strong on the fate of democracy. We see this especially in the way tech made Trump president. The storming of the Capitol took place virtually via social media manipulation and how the future should look like in those eyes.
This applies especially to tech journalists. Especially in the tech sector, but not exclusively, the future jargon is dominant. But especially tech journalists have to teflonize themselves against future blah blah. Otherwise, they are just the outsourced marketing department of tech companies.
In conclusion, this list should summarize again how the term future should be used in texts:
- Never say something is „The Future“.
- The abbreviation to „The Future“ in titles must always be removed because it is always abusive.
- Futurologists speak of futures because they are spaces of possibilities. Media professionals should adopt this vocabulary.
- Use the term future as rarely as possible and rather speak of possible developments.
- Separate between what, for example, studies or surveys can conclude for a possible development and what would be desirable from the point of view of the authors or protagonists.
- Make it linguistically clear what future developments are about: Are they facts, trends, assumptions, wishes or morally desirable futures?
- Make the connection between a person’s statements and their interests transparent: For example, in the case of someone who benefits from the blockchain hype continuing because he has a blockchain startup and at the same time claims that blockchain technology is the future.
GenAI transparency note: I used Google Gemini to translate this text, and adjusted experessions where it was needed. Read the original text here →.
Photo by Aditya Chinchure on Unsplash