I wonder when the internet first appeared. Well, I guess I can google it. According to Wikipedia, it was first created (although not popular at all) in 1974. It’s amazing how the internet has appeared and taken over our lives. The term Google, a name of an internet-related corporation, has become a verb in speech. I have just used the website Wikipedia to search for a question I had. This shows how important the internet is to us.
I cannot imagine life without the internet. Of course it has to do with the fact that I was born after the internet was created, and grew up using the internet regularly. I don’t clearly remember how the internet was different when I was younger, but I wasn’t as depended on it as I am now. Of course at a young age, I didn’t have the responsibility to shop online or do research. But around 4th grade I think I started to chat online and use the internet for homework. I did play some internet games. But because I wasn’t too computer or internet-obsessed, although I know there have been many improvements and new innovations related to the internet, I haven’t really noticed them. Probably internet games have gotten much better, and what else….I don’t really know.
Now, I use the internet mostly everyday, to check emails, to do research for school, to watch videos, to shop, to chat, etc. It’s also useful (if that’s the right word…) to waste time. I can browse the internet for hours, doing nothing in particular or without a particular purpose. But it is actually really useful because you can minimize time of getting information or doing something, like shopping. I can basically search for an answer to any question that pops into my head. I guess this convenience is good, but it can be bad in a sense that it prevents us from thinking and actually searching for answers, because we can just get it with several clicks. The internet is also great for keeping in touch with people and meeting new people (although I don’t really use it for the latter), through the use of services like Facebook and mixi for Japan. Almost everyone I know in Japan that is Japanese uses mixi for writing blogs and uploading photos that friends can comment on. It recently added games. The great thing about the internet is, we can use it on the computer and on cellphones, so it basically is with you constantly. On my cellphone, I use it to get maps or directions for a place I want to go to, or when I don’t know where to go to, to find a restaurant nearby. As I said before, the convenience of the internet is of course in some ways positive, but our dependency on it is a pretty scary thought, and I think this dependency will grow in the future. It has also “mechanized” many human actions, and it’s a little sad to think about. Of course there is also the dangers of the internet, like security and privacy issues.
I think in the future, the internet will play an even bigger role in our lives, and also at the same time become more of an issue. First, people have tried to mechanize and make everything more convenient, which is why anything useful or mechanical has been invented. So of course people are going to keep trying to make new things, and especially with new technology, the possibilities are endless. Of course the expansion of the internet will also occur concurrently with the development of new technology and will mean that the computer itself, or the cellphone, or the device we use to access the internet will evolve as well. As internet grows, security and privacy issues, which are already big problems, are most likely going to worsen. As the internet expands possibilities, there will be more chances to infringe privacy rights, and it’s scary to think how far this will go.
Looking into the near future, about five years, I can’t imagine that big of a change. I’m sure there will be new applications and software, and maybe a new version of Windows. Because there improvements to the internet are continuous, there should be more improvements. But with this improvements come dangers, and there is a possibility of new viruses and worms. In ten years, there may a big more of drastic change, like a new invention–similar how big of an impact the Apple iPod had on the music industry and our daily lives, and with it, a legal version of downloading music, iTunes was developed. Also, there may be new computers as well, which will lead to a different way to connect to the internet, and the internet being used for more things. Just like the now-playing movie “Avatar”, we may have our own avatar inside the computer that acts as ourselves online! In fifty years, there should be a difference to now in that our lifestyles would change. Of course I expect the computer itself to be different, so that we have other ways of connecting. We may be able to actually go into the virtual world, through the creation of a matrix-like virtual reality…but I guess that’s pretty unrealistic. Maybe in 100 years? These kinds of innovations aren’t just technical but biological and scientific. Like I’ve mentioned before, about the movie “Avatar”, with the concept of cloning and robots, instead of a character avatar representing us online, the computer itself may become personalized to us, and it may make its own decisions based on our personalities and what we want, and access the internet by itself. The internet may as well become almost like a living organism! But that also is pretty unrealistic…but who knows!
Thinking about the positive and negative effects of internet on our lives, it’s hard to determine whether it is overall better for us that the internet is developing. I shop online, chat, and do research alll the time, so I can’t say that I don’t need the internet, or that the internet having evolved was a bad thing. However, I am pretty satisfied with the internet right now, and I don’t really think there needs to be much improvement, which obviously is because I’m not too dependent on it and I don’t really want anything more than what I already use it for. But of course as it develops, I will probably use it for more things and realize the convenience of it. But considering the issues that will grow as it develops, it’s difficult to judge if the internet should go any further. But whether it’s good or bad, there’s no stopping innovation. The internet is constantly changing and improving, and who knows what it will be like in the next five, ten, fifty years?
