In Vannevar Bush’s essay “As We May Think” published in 1945, Bush depicted a hypothetical machine called the Memex. We can see many overlaps between Bush’s early picture of the Memex and our modern information-sharing model. Bush’s vision introduced a brand new way of accessing information. And his innovative idea behind the name was a revolution, serving as a cornerstone of today’s “hypertext”, one of the key underlying concepts of the World Wide Web.
Bush’s Memex machine was envisioned based on a solid principle: The human mind operates by association. Machines are built up by algorithms. They follow rules and steps. They don’t associate objects by nature. That discrepancy between human and machine minds causes friction when humans connect & communicate through machines. We need to adapt a machine for it to serve our way of the intuitive thinking process.
Another important insight Bush brought out was his emphasis on direct feedback between a visual trigger and the information stored behind it, the same way as to how today’s hypertext works. You click the word in a paragraph, then accessing that additional information immediately of that word.
The concept of this immediate information access is significant as it completely changed how information can be tight together. Before that, the collection of information (ex. library) is usually set up in a certain structure where humans need to follow a certain path to find certain things they need. However, with the Memex, humans can share information and access related information as they are browsing, without any time delay. That eye-brain-hand signal model is still being used by today’s search engine.
Even though the physical design of the Memex is outdated, almost hard to imagine by today’s standard, it’s still astonishing to see that Bush envisioned something which key principles can still be applied to today’s technology.
And the Memex was never built right? I have such a hard time imagining wireframes without actually making them, so the fact he could have such a solid idea of how information should work is really amazing. And it’s principles, like you said, are still being used today. I want whatever this guy was having!
The idea of memex is embedded to modern social media or other media as we search, type letters, and leave comments. I am also dazed by Bush’s foresight!