Winds of Changes: How the Internet and the Computer have Transformed our World

Inventions and innovations in technology have dramatically changed the landscape of communication in recent years. The internet is reaching ubiquity level almost everywhere one goes in the world today. It is changing our behaviors and our societies in ways that were unpredictable a few years ago; the pace of these changes is simply mindboggling. From a few hundred million a few years ago, the number of internet users has reached over 3 billion today. This book is a personal insight into the realities of the internet era.History, especially the history of technology, gives us some interesting perspectives on the effects of our inventions. If we are to believe it, then we must brace ourselves for some radical and irreversible changes in our societies. Just like the invention of the wheel, the network of networks has opened our mental horizons and has helped us push their boundaries a bit farther. Just like the printing press, this new technology promises to democratize and decentralize knowledge and information. However, in the midst of the promises of the internet and other digital technologies, there are so many challenges that our societies have to face and overcome. We will increasingly need to see the big picture more than at any time before. Among others, this present work asks and attempts to respond to some of the questions many have raised in the wake of the digital revolution that is upon us. Questions such as: How can we better grasp the scale of the transformations both at the individual and the collective levels that are happening right before our eyes? How can we better minimize the perils of the digital age and maximize its potentials when it comes to productivity? How can we use our new digital tools to build a human-scale world? It is a modest contribution to an ongoing conversation that is getting louder and louder ever since the internet has gone global.