# The Computer as a Communication Device

Licklider and Taylor argue that networked computers will become a medium for human communication and community, not just computation.

## Summary

[Licklider](/wiki/licklider.md) and [Robert Taylor](/wiki/robert-taylor.md) predicted that within years people would communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face, and that online communities would form around shared interests rather than shared geography. Written as ARPANET was taking shape, it foresaw networked computing as a *communication medium*.

## Why it matters

This paper reframes the computer network as social infrastructure — a public good for connection and community. That communitarian, [decentralized](/wiki/decentralization.md) vision is exactly the spirit the Independent Internet aims to restore.

> Part of the AP0110.ORG source library. See the [wiki overview](/wiki.md).

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## Backlinks

Pages that link here:

- [J.C.R. Licklider](/wiki/licklider.md) — Psychologist and computer scientist who envisioned human-computer symbiosis and the networked 'Intergalactic Computer Network.'
- [Robert Taylor](/wiki/robert-taylor.md) — Research administrator who funded ARPANET and later led Xerox PARC's computer science lab; co-author of the thesis that computers would become a communication medium.