I am someone who prefers writing with a pen on a paper... I am also someone who prefers to type my thoughts.... Basically I am a confused person...
The other day I was just putting a few thoughts on my computer (which is synced to my sky drive entirely) and a thought just popped up.... What if someday sky drive decides to discontinue its services or if my computer breathes it's last... Willl my thoughts be lost forever??
Today we are so much in sync with the digital world that we couldn't do a day without it. Imagine not having google to check every single thing you need to know or not having social networking websites to let the world know that what you are upto. I personally cannot imagine such a day.
We are not just dependent but we also trust it so much that instead of having physical bits and pieces of our lives, we have it all together on a chip... Be it on a PC or a tab or even a phone.
A world that had been in origin only since the past 15 years today has the control of our lives. The revolution that we talk of knows much more about us even more than our family and friends.
Multi billion dollar companies are incharge of our lives or better put they run our lives for us. What if someday they decide that the business of ruling our lives is not very profitable and may be they should either shut down or merge with someone or some entirely new concept
If someday google decides that they will charge for every search or if the servers of social networking websites either fail or get hacked...
Will our life break into bits and pieces that we will never be able to recover or will some superman come to ensure that no revolution breaks our life like that??
In comparison to this if I reflect over the lives of our ancestors... Their social networks or their search engines, etc, were all in black and white in the form of encyclopaedias, diaries, letters, etc.
All these modes though time consuming ensured that they were in control of thei own lives and no third party decisions effected it or their lives in any manner compared to ours that is entirely dependent on third parties.
This thought though provoking gave me little or no answers.
What do you think?????
1 comment:
Not to be critical, but I think your concept is a little half baked. A world suddenly turning back to the non-internet ages, i.e. without search engines or social networking sites or internet technology (though not necessarily a bad thing) and its so-called dreadful consequences, is imaginative paranoia. You can't reverse technology, you can only adapt to new ones. So, maybe in the future we may not have google or facebook, but we'll have something better that replaces the purpose of what has gone extinct. When the wrist watch was invented, a lot of people had one, but when the mobile came, the watch became obsolete and was replaced (though many people still fancy wearing it, including me). It wasn't suddenly just eliminated without cause or a replacement. There are plenty more examples throughout history yet people will have similar paranoid ideas because it's human tendency to be unreasonably anxious about unknown factors, it's a survival instinct.
Secondly, the idea that businesses have control of our lives is more of a conspiracy theory. It's like saying that the NSA is watching everybody. They have better things to do. Multibillion dollar companies are businesses ruled by free market and where there is free market, there's always competition. If google tomorrow starts charging for searches, people will start moving to other free search websites like bing or ask.com. So, obviously that's not going to happen. Google has a business model based on adwords and other such programs. They need to keep the search engine free. As for social networking websites being hacked, what is the real danger there? It's not like you make financial transactions through it. Yes, there's the real danger of objectionable materials being posted or such misdemeanors, but the level of security provided by such sites is not easy to surpass. Even though many would want you to believe otherwise. The most recent case of real security threat has been the Heart Bleed bug which wasn't even a virus but a software glitch in the https protocol. And, patches have been run to clear this issue. I'm not saying there is no reason to be paranoid about internet security or that companies don't manipulate people. After all, many antivirus companies have been known to come out with viruses so that they can create fear and sell their antivirus products. But to fear that digital companies rule everyone's lives is a long shot at best.
These are just some random thoughts I had after reading your post.
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