We Reach People in an Instant

Everything has Changed

We tap a glowing rectangle of glass and a second later, we hear the voices of our friends or see a string of text materializing in front of us from miles away. We don't just talk anymore, we maintain a permanent connection that can be accessed at any moment. We can call, text, or open social media to see what someone's up to at any minute of the day. We can see locations, what someone ate for dinner, their pets, their outfit-- at any given moment. The idea of distance has been entirely erased when the whole world can sit in our fingertips.

The quiet yet drastic change isn't that we can reach anyone, but it's also that we are being constantly inhabited. Our brains were built for small tribes, knowing of the few people within our immediate circles. Now, we carry running updates, opinions, and existences of thousands of people in our pockets at all times. We now know more people than our brains were ever meant to. One viral video online and we can gather unending support, love or hate from thousands of people that would have never known you existed without the internet from a small snippet of our lives.

Examples of Ways We Exist Differently

Whether or not the existence of the internet and our devices is interpreted in a positive or negative light, and no matter how much society talks about how it has changed humanity, we truly don't appreciate the core of what the technology does for us.

• Dating apps introduce you to people that you may have never known and changes the way people seek intimacy.

• Social media introduce you to opinions that you didn't even know could exist. That is, until your algorithm starts understanding your values and only serves you content you agree with.

• We can do full time jobs from the comfort of our homes. We can get important projects moving in a team while being time zones apart.

• We can access new stores, items, merchandise, gift ideas, and more from online shopping, ads, our social media inspiration.

• Finances can be handled with just clicks of a button. Ordering a new credit card, paying your bill, opening a new account can all be done with ease.

• You can order food to pick up in advance, or have it delivered to your home with in minutes.

• You can watch someone try something that you've always wanted to try. View someone's opinion of a game, restaurant, event, etc in an instant.

• The anticipation of getting updates about events and people has largely vanished, although taking a new light with ghosting/lack of response on someone's end.

• Texting allows us to weave conversations in and out of our physical lives (unfortunately, also causing certain punctuation marks and emoji use into a game of "am I getting the cold shoulder, or is this how they text?)

• Having access to unlimited entertainment keeps growing beyond social media with streaming services and more advanced theaters (4DX, IMAX, etc).

• We can use a GPS to get anywhere we need to go without physical maps.

• We can create reminders, set alarms, and take notes with lists of things that we need to remember.

We can't have any of these things without our devices and the internet.

While many of these perks have consequences, humanity is still adjusting to this drastic difference in how we live our day to day lives. There are many hidden costs. Internet anonymity is taken for granted. Rumors can spread quickly. And, it's imperative to always be careful that you keep your passwords complicated and a secret, and not to trust everybody that comes across your screen.

We are hyper-connected, yet we are still learning what it means to live in the shadow of all that connection.

We shouldn't take the internet for granted.