The Virtual World: How far can it go

It’s 2013; almost everyone in America has a computer, social media is peaking, and lives are simply changing. Everywhere around us we see different mediums of communication. We can surf the web from simply moving our fingertips with phones ranging from the size of our hands to the size of notebooks. If someone were to predict something like this in the 7-s people would have looked at theme as if they were being outlandish and simply borderline insane. That was when computers were the sizes of gyms and now almost everything is a computer. Phones, Ipads tablets, TV’s, gaming consoles, and laptops. We are witnessing the death of the PC. From the 90’s go go tech boom to today’s social media takeover everything is taking place from your fingertips. If you take a strep back this is unreal; I’m personally one generation off from not having electricity. My parents grew up in a third world country where electricity and clean water was a blessing and now not having those things is unfathomable. Nowadays the internet is being used for anything and everything; even spying as mentioned by Andrejevic “Internet entrepreneur Jay Walker has proposed an interactive system for protecting US borders and other soft targets from an attack.” They call this system US  Home-guard  where you can access this system from the internet and see what’s going on. This is crazy to say the least. With all these servers around us what’s to stop the government from already spying on us. The NSA is already watching us online and tapping into our phone calls so I really wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a camera on every block in the USA. With the internet it’s impossible to reach a limit. We are at the pinnacle without a shout of a doubt; but there is no such thing as a limit and barriers are being broken day by day.

I mentioned the negative about the internet but it’s unfair to not mention how many billions of lives it has changed. People not only gain personal enjoyment from the internet but also make a living from it. From all the IT guys in the world, to the day traders using online trading platforms, to every single branch in the government. The internet is everywhere and it’s helping people gain money, build/maintain relationships, gain knowledge, and help see things that they’ve never seen before. This is all mentioned by Castronova. These online worlds have changed lives forever and will continue to do so for years to come.