Are we there yet?
I just read the very amusing and apt article by Floridi (2007).
His prediction is that distinctions of online and offline will disappear and that we will become ‘Inforgs’, connected informational organisms.
His vision of the future is such that the intrinsic nature of how we live will be reconstructed and how we interact with even dead things like buildings and cars will change. He says ‘Itentities’ will start talking to each other. The world will be fully interactive, and everything will be connected all the time. We will synchronise everything. Our natural state is to be so connected that we will be uncomfortable when we cannot be. He finally predicts Google in Real life where we can find our glasses and staplers just by asking or calling.
I think we are almost there. We can now talk to our Google home and turn on our lights and control the atmosphere. Siri can be called upon while we are in the car, and we can command her to send a message. Our gadgets already talk to each other through many apps. We try to synchronise everything through the cloud. Health apps help us monitor our blood sugar levels and our heart rate. Our smart watches tell us to walk when we sit down for too long. The Google home assistant tells us what the weather is like our suburb and the recipe of our favourite cake. We can teach and learn in virtual environments. We can take a class we are teaching to a museum in Singapore through a virtual tour. We feel the urge to share anything through social media. Social interactions online become the measure of our ability to connect, and the validation of our being.
Just look at us at this moment. We are doing a ‘blog’ to reflect what we have learnt. We connect with our learning community online because this is our ‘infosphere’.
We are almost there. But I still can’t find my glasses.
Floridi, L. (2007). A look into the future impact of ICT on our lives. The Information Society, 23(1), 59-64.