"What is the Internet and What Will It Become?"

Today we talked about the Internet of Things and the future of interconnected accessories designed to make our lives easier and more convenient. Of course, there is a lot to be gained by such a network: more free time, fewer mundane household tasks, and increased convenience, security, safety, and efficiency across the board. If the Internet of Things can really be worked out to perfection, we won’t have to do anything at all…and that’s kindof a problem. Although the possibilities of leisure and ease that The Internet of Things promises are incredibly tantalizing, it’s very sad to consider what we might lose in exchange for all this change: if this new internet is a success, we will no longer have to interact with our things. It might sound bizarre, but-painful as they might be sometimes-there is actually something to be said for mundane activities like cooking, cleaning, driving, shopping, and making coffee. We maintain our contact with the world through these little activities. We inject little bits of ourselves-our style and flare-into everything we do, and part of who we are is formed by our ability to find enjoyment and fulfillment in the little things in life.

It might be said that the Internet of Things will free us from many frustrating and unnecessary tasks to do more of the things we love. I would say that it will actually eliminate the little activities we need in our lives in order to do nothing at all. With the constantly increasing role of technology in our lives, it feels like there is an ever increasing divide between work and leisure: work is difficult, painful, and boring, while leisure is easy, simple and fun. In our ever bussier lives, we look forward, more and more, to our opportunities to do nothing at all, to post up on the couch and watch a little netflix, kill time on youtube, play videogames, or for many people, to use (and abuse) substances as a means of escape. When we are not working, we feel, we shouldn’t be facing challenges or pushing ourselves. I would venture to say that such a divide between work and leisure is unhealthy, and an Internet of Things will only make it wider. Work and free time should be more connected, they should have more “flow” (https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202 I haven’t read this but I’ve heard its good).

Backtracking a little bit to our discussion: Another thing that interested me today was professor Waldo’s point that Plato once argued against teaching people to read because they would lose their ability to memorize. It sounds insane today considering the history of literature and the written word, but considering the merit of Plato’s point actually does inspire an imagining of an old skill that we as people lost during the development of society. Imagine for a second that you cannot read, and that your education is based entirely in memorization. You would memorize entire books, formulas, scientific facts and much more, and you had better internalize it all quite well otherwise you won’t have any access to what you forget. It would be a total pain and you wouldn’t be able to memorize nearly as much as you could one day read, but imagine how well you would know a text, how deeply you would understand a formula. Your education would be the pinnacle of the liberal arts in the sense that you yourself would be truly changed and educated, a better thinker dependent on nothing. It’s hard to fathom what that would even look like, but it’s worth a thought. It also inspires an imagining for all the skills that people have stopped bothering to master as technology has progressed over the centuries- from memorization to cursive handwriting-as well as all the skills that will become esoteric within our lifetimes as technology continues to improve. Who knows, maybe in ten years children won’t even need to learn how to write by hand anymore.