Is The Internet Changing Your Life?

It is hard to imagine the internet has only been in widespread use for the last two decades or so. Before that computers operated as single specialised units for holding rather than sharing information. It was only in the 1990s that things began to change.

The Internet

The internet as we know it only came to prominence around 1995, as it was exposed to the creativity and energy of private entrepreneurs for the first time.

Since then its growth has been stunning, as home and business connectivity and usage have increased at a rate beyond prediction.

The stampede started with a few individuals who wanted to share information, even though their ambitions were stifled by the lack of a common language or single unified system.

Computers at the time were unlike today’s models as they were large and expensive and owned by universities, big businesses, governments and research organisations.

Today access to the internet is widespread and increasing at an astonishing rate, not least because of the smartphone and growing access to broadband.

With the advent of the smartphone and the spread of tablets and other devices today’s culture of technology everywhere has taken hold and is celebrated widely.

Digital devices are now connected via the internet to each other and allow even the non-technologist to test their creativity and imagination in developing applications.

The digital revolution, as a result, has helped create new businesses, new industries and new opportunities for millions of people around the world.

Connectivity

The internet connects everything: computers, smartphones, ipads, machines, supermarket supply chains, insurance companies, financial institutions, credit agencies, health organisations and much more.

It allows people and things everywhere to connect and connectivity is transforming the world, as it evolves to become an all-encompassing infrastructure that seeps into every facet of life.

The capacity of the internet to connect everyone and everything is already changing the way we live as it affects what we do moment by moment: think of how many times a day we check our phone.

As the numbers of connections increase so do their value and digitally driven companies benefit from gathering and analysing the information they garner, knowingly and unknowingly, from us.

There are, of course, challenges: not least in relation to privacy, security, identity theft, on-line fraud, data loss, cyber-crime, and the hacking of everyday systems and platforms to steal people’s private details.

The risks come as the price of progress and must be managed but they won’t halt technological change or slow its advance.

As a result, the world has changed beyond recognition in the last twenty years and will, undoubtedly, change in even more ways in the next twenty.

SO, the internet is connecting everyone and everything and will continue to do so in ways that challenge and reward, hopefully, in equal measure.