How the Internet has re-shaped the world like it was Plasticine
World.Humans.Internet.
The world is always in constant change. Humans are always coming up with new innovations, that shape the world. But the Internet came to change it all. Just imagine that suddenly, cars stopped being used: The world is already shaped aligned to allow car usage. Imagine having to bring down all the streets and highways. How could we allow that transition? In this paper, I will be describing how the introduction of the Internet re-shaped how the world works, mentioning the ways it has made our lives better, as well as how it has made them worse at the same time.
The internet is a network that links us all. “The world is now a global city and the internet is in a way a lot responsible for that.” LINK1. It has been the single strongest “world shaper”. This data states it clear: “75% of people replaced their MP3 Players with a Smartphone, 74% utilize it as their alarm, 70% use it as their camera, and 67% as their watch.” LINK2
It is impossible to imagine a world without Internet now, we cannot help it: We depend on it!
The Internet picked up human necessities and digested them through its tube to come up with a whole new solution: One the most impressive ones is long distance communications: Romeo in Italy trying to tell Julieta in Argentina how his day had been used to mean sending a letter that would get lost in time, it seems mind breaking to know that now it is via a video call in Skype or a message in What’s App so simply solved.
The circulation of information is another field of life that changed so radically along with the step in of the Internet. How many trees had to end up as Newspapers? How much percentage of the young people really went down to get the paper? How much work had to be done to bring the news from the eyes of the people who knew the story to the paper laying in the shop? Now, just a couple of touches to a screen and you can find out about the things you are interested in.
Education was triggered. Before the door to wisdom about a topic was only the University. And really, how many people had the opportunity of attending the University? Even in a developed country like the UK the answer is scary (49%) LINK2.1. It gets worse for second world countries like mine (Mexico) (23%) LINK2.2., or third world countries like Zimbabue. The internet enabled the access to a great mine of information free to every person with access to the web. That gives people a chance of changing their life, of learning.
Remember when you were planning a trip and had to visit a travel agency to get it all started? The Internet has changed how we buy all products. There were obviously problems with these technologies in the beginning, (It was an opportunity mine for hackers and web buglers to access people’s money), but every day we count with more and more secure ways of buying online. LINK3
The point has been made clear. Humanity had to move in the direction of the internet and surrender in front of its sweet ways of breaking barriers. The interesting comes, when we make it interact with humans. The internet is a great invention but, it is a double side weapon: it can do well if used correctly, but also wrong if not.
My mother has a phrase that says: “Cellphones bring you closer to people that are far, but they bring you far from people that are close” I used to be part of the people that could not stand people not leaving their phones, and slowly, through 4 years of usage I have become one of them. The phone and the internet are addictive. And it is true that people nowadays abuse in the usage of today’s ways of communicating preferring talking on the phone rather than spending quality time with the people typing in the other device.
I believe it is in the hands of people, to learn to balance the usage of technology and use it to benefit their life, and distinguish when it starts being negative for them. Balance is everything, and technology does not escape the rule. We must never forget that we are humans, not machines.
You can see people in a bus paying attention to their phones instead of the human being next to them or looking at the landscape out the window to “Kill waste time”. We are dreaming in our sleep less and making days longer. We are selecting people for a job based on words instead of meeting him to observe his aptitudes.LINK4 Are we becoming more like machines? Or are we using the machines to help us get most of life? That is a question every person should answer himself these days.
Are we bringing cultures to live together and know each other better? Or are we mixing a salad with all of them and losing unique things from each?LINK5 Are we enabling people to work more comfortable from home and help them avoid wasting time in going to an office, or secluding individuals from a social environment? LINK6 Are social networks a playing garden or a dark street at night to look for victims?
Internet can be used for the good, or for the bad. And it is each person’s choice. It is clear that it is a challenge, the challenge of knowing how to integrate and interact with the digital world we live in today. People need to be responsible, use their rational judgement, a sense of self judging and management, to observe how they are interacting with technology and change to an appropriate use. In the world we live in today, it is not about whether you want to use the Internet or not, it is about how you want to use it. It is if you want to use to get the best or the worst out of it.
Reflexion
I have to say ever since I knew I had to take this course in my home University it seemed interesting, but this course at the UoM turned out to be even more interesting than the one at home! Like I mentioned in my post I believe there is no question of whether someone wants to take part in the digital world or not, the only thing we can decide is how we get to use it, and so it makes it an essential subject for anyone.
I liked a lot the discussions at class, I was impressed by how people in the UK have a wonderful capacity to think rationally, normally that is something that I outstand where I come from and here I felt like somebody else from the crowd, I liked that, I took part in discussions with really intelligent people studying something completely different than me.
I take with me the phrase “When a product is free, it means you are the product” I liked that session a lot, thinking about how they came up with a way of attracting us to use social media and provide them with information to target us and sell us things.
I liked preparing the PechaKucha presentation, I have always admired how Steve Jobs presented his products in a simple and passionate way, and I think this is a great exercise to learn to give presentations with these characteristics, and without a doubt this is an ability that will always be useful for anyone these days.
I also liked taking a glance at the future of all these topics, we have been witnesses of the introduction and begin of the internet to our lives, but there is still so much to come in the future that other generations will experience and it is interesting to get to see where this is all going. I loved the class with Smart Cities, it gave us an opportunity to come along with crazy solutions to problems we face today, and I think that is exactly the kind of ideas you want to be handling with: The Internet itself seemed like such an out of sense idea to someone who would send cards in the past.
I liked how every class was different, it was clear that the involved people had passion for what they were talking about and were making an effort to get us involved with the topics and incentive the discussion. I liked how there were invited people to talk to us every class, that was very rich, it never got boring or monotonous, and every person had his or her own style of getting us involved.
I learned that my habits and the way I interact with the internet and technology is good, but not as good as I thought it was, I discovered I too have been a victim of falling in the wrong way of using it and have to pay much more attention so that I become a good citizen in terms of using all the media and taking the best out of it.
Thank you a lot for the preparation of this course, I really liked it and valued it, keep it being as great as it was!
