The internet has changed the lives of humans in a way that no previous era’s invention has, whether it was the invention of the wheel or Guttenberg’s printing press or Graham Bell’s telephone. Granted that those inventions led to the progress of humankind but the superpower that the internet brings to the table vastly overshadows them
The current generations comprising millennials and Gen Z that have been exposed to the internet in their early childhood and youth have a different approach to life. The internet did not just drastically change their lives and outlook to life, but it has become an integral part of their lives. It is so indispensable that a life without the internet seems like a myth to them. Whatever they need has been placed at their fingertips in a palm-sized device that can control all aspects of their lives. The smartphone generation knows no other way.
Internet-enabled devices, especially smartphones, have brought the world closer than ever before. No other technological innovation has merged convenience and scale as beautifully as the internet. Today, a few taps can connect you to someone in a faraway country and some more taps can enable you to pay your bills in one hand while you’re sipping on a juice from the other. Name anything and the internet has an answer for it. Google can find anything for you so that you don’t have to rummage through aisles of dusty old books in libraries, your bank app lets you control your account at any time of the day or night, food delivery companies ensure tasty dishes are served at your doorstep while e-commerce companies will let you try out dresses online. It is hard to find an important everyday area that the internet has not transformed.
Future generations will be so accustomed to this “instant” formula that they wouldn’t be able to comprehend a time not too far away when things were manually done in the pre-internet era. While the older generations would have visibly noticed this change from analogue to digital as they transitioned from the late 20th century to early 21st century, the ones under 30 today have most likely grown up with a cell phone/smartphone or a computer/laptop with access to the internet. Even early memories of a life that wasn’t so connected would have been eclipsed by what was to come later. In a few decades, everyone will be internet-savvy right from their toddler days. Whether it is liked or not, this digital embrace will take place for all.
The internet goes hand-in-hand with digital today. Everything digital is connected to the internet including the basic items in your house whether it is your TV, AC, switchboard or even your fan. There is an app for almost everything as well as unnecessary things. Even advertisements today no longer tell you to go to a physical shop and buy but instead direct you to an e-commerce site or the company’s own online store or app.
The thing that draws people the most to be so heavily dependent on these virtual realities is first and foremost the convenience of everything happening real time. Social media, especially, can go viral for the silliest of reasons. Case in point is the erroneous tweet “Covfefe” that was sent by US President Donald Trump and turned him into a laughingstock. Even world leaders aren’t immune to the reach of the internet.
If Maggi was once the standard of quickness with its “two-minute” tagline, today, this pedestal belongs to the internet. In two minutes, the world can turn upside down with a wrong tweet, secrets can be revealed by a wrong click, fake news can be planted as genuine, and personal chats can be leaked to unknown scammers.
It is, of course, important to keep pace with changing times but to do so without understanding what that change brings is likely to bite us in the back. Though India is the second largest internet user market in the world, when it comes to awareness about the medium, we are grossly negligent. And our carelessness is misused by those who know better.
Change is happening and the world has shifted and is still shifting to an entirely online mode of operation where if you’re not careful, within two minutes all hell can break loose. The convenience of the smartphone and the internet has also entrusted us with a power that we must wield with care. Because with the internet no magic spell can reverse what you typed or make something disappear forever.
It is a change unlike ever before. It is a change that is yet being understood and unravelled by its own creators. The internet is still growing to maturity, especially in India but its utility and impact have already changed the contours of the world. Wars are being fought at the cyber scale, countries are being divided through fake news and propaganda and amongst all this, the tiny individual lies unaware of just how caught up he is in this muddle. Does he control this change or does the change control him? That’s the question to ponder.
