The Future

We all know the internet is a vast and complex web of information. We have seen trends such as, viral videos, websites, memes, etc., rise and fall since we first discovered how to dial in to the internet. What person in 2000 would have thought that AOL dial-up internet would one day be considered slow? What pre-teenager would have predicted the demise of AIM or MSN messengers? And no one thought that MySpace would one day have a competitor that would take over the social networking market. The internet ebbs and flows like waves, but those few giants, such as Yahoo! or Google, have stuck around. So, here are my predictions for the future of the great bank of knowledge we call the internet:

• Social media will be come exponentially more incorporated into our every day lives. Facebook that connects to your DVR box and lets people know what you're watching? Possibly. Twitter connected to your refrigerator that can "tweet while you eat"? Maybe. A chip that is implanted into your head and tweets all of your thoughts as they happen? Probably not... but no one knows what the future holds for us.
• With the constant impending doom of the SOPA laws, I expect some sort of restriction will eventually find its way into censoring the internet. I also predict that if/when this happens, the outrage of the people will be heard far and wide.
• Some sort of merger/consolidation between websites. For example, if Facebook is around in 150 years (I'm not saying it will be, and I'm also not saying it won't be, this is simply a hypothetical statement), who will really need Ancestry.com? My great-great-great grandchildren could just go check out my Facebook and see exactly what I was thinking/doing/etc. at any exact moment in time. Ancestry.com would be obsolete, except in the cases of family members who weren't around during Facebook's time. I expect something similar of other websites as well.
• You know the lack of privacy that celebrities always complain about? With the internet heading the direction it is, I'm guessing that lack of privacy will soon be the same for all of us. Right now I can google anyone I want, and I'll probably find at least a small amount of information on them. In 10, 20, 50 years, when the internet has had more time to collect its goodies, who knows what information people could find about others.

It's hard to tell whether the advancements in the internet will be positive or negative. Or even if there will be more advancements. Who knows, maybe the world will be okay with where the internet is now, and just let developments stop. That's pretty unlikely to happen though, humans are curious creatures, always striving to do something bigger, better, and more awesome than the last person. Only time will tell!

Access and Equity

Despite the fact that the internet is growing before our eyes, there are still quite a large number of people across the globe who don't have access, often or ever, to the internet and social media. This inequity in access to the world's most useful form of communication, creates a gap between those who are "wired" and those who aren't. I mean think about it, how many things have YOU found out about through social media? Here is an EXTREMELY short list of the events I remember learning about through Facebook/Twitter/MySpace (what's that?)/etc.

• Osama Bin Laden's death
• Whitney Houston's death
• Michael Jackson's death
• Brittney Murphy's death
• Deaths of long lost friends from school/work/etc

While it might be depressing that everything I just listed is about me finding out people are dead, it proves the point that, 1. these events stuck in my mind, and 2. I learned of these events on the internet. So many more things I have learned through my extremely easy access to the internet. It is amazing to think that there are people across the world who don't even know who Michael Jackson WAS, let alone the fact that he is dead. Access to the internet in today's world is necessary for me. The week that my computer was in the shop felt like torture. All I could think was "Thank GOD I have my iPhone." What about all the people in the world who don't have a computer, an iPhone, or internet access at all? How do they interact with people in their lives and learn their important information? Think about that the next time you're complaining about your 3G connection being slow.