“Life will be happier for the on-line individual because the people with whom one interacts most strongly will be selected more by commonality of interests and

“Life will be happier for the on-line individual because the people with whom one interacts most strongly will be selected more by commonality of interests and goals than by accidents of proximity,” they wrote in a visionary 1968 paper titled “The Computer as a Communication Device.” Their optimism verged on utopianism. “There will be plenty of opportunity for everyone (who can afford a console) to find his calling, for the whole world of information, with all its fields and disciplines, will be open to him.” Excerpt From: Isaacson, Walter. “The Innovators.”