The Future of the Internet

After spending a whole semester on the internet and learning about many tools and programs that I had never known about, the future of the internet seems to be boundless.

Already, new programs and applications are being created everyday. Connectivity has crossed from just computers to mobile phones in the last few years. Everyone can constantly be updated about each other from all over the world.

Furthermore, just this year, the internet capabilities of smart phones have assisted in revolutions in Egypt and in connecting family members caught in Japan's earthquake and tsunami disaster when the mobile network was down.

The pace at which the internet is developing is unlikely to slow. Through computers and mobile phones, the internet has already made inroads into our daily lives.

Personally, I feel that the internet is likely to become connected to almost every part of our lives, from daily household chores to luxury hobbies.

However, I am not sure if that is a development I am looking forward to. To be constantly connected.

In the now, simply turning off the connectivity devices can cut one off from the buzz of the internet. On the other hand, in the future, if the internet becomes indivisible from our every little move, will we become overly reliant on it - and therefore unable to live without it?

For some teenagers, living without internet connection is almost unthinkable. Yet those who are slightly older will remember when the internet did not constantly demand our attention and buzz us with every detail possible.

While the expansion of the internet seems limitless and has no doubt, benefitted us in many ways, I feel that an important point is not to let the internet overwhelm and replace the role of the human aspect in our daily relationships and activities. The internet is a tool and not a person. So depending on the direction that we push it in, it could become either our best friend, or our greatest distraction.