Happy Birthday To the World Wide Web - What's Happening With It and Where's It Headed?

Upon the 25th Birthday of the Internet, the PBS NEWSHOUR recently held a round-table discussion of Internet experts on where the WWW currently is and where it might be headed, moderated by Jeffery Brown. But rather than spending much time seriously tackling such heavy questions I want to share a rather light moment from the PBS NEWSHOUR discussion and just "flirt" with such questions. Mr. Brown had just brought up the question of where the Internet might be headed in the future.

"XENI JARDIN:...And I think we’re all from the last generation that began when there was no Internet. And to really understand where things are going for the future, we might want to have a 14-year-old or 15-year-old at the table...

(LAUGHTER)

JEFFREY BROWN: But they would be looking at their screen, right?"

(http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/web-25-years/)

Jeffrey Brown stumbled on a couple of things here. First, of course he's mostly right in indicating that many teens know so much more about the Internet than even young adults that to understand it now and into the future we might well need to consult with them. I know for years many, including myself, people have joked about needing to find a 13-year-old when faced with a computer/internet related problem. For example, I have to wonder if I'm the only older person who has an mp3 player who can't figure out how to download music on to it? In the meantime, until I can be granted time from a young person, it makes a great little radio.

Then there's the second thing Jeffrey Brown touches on here with a chuckle; too often while conversing with young people now days they are looking at the screen on their so-called smart-phone rather than looking at you. I don't mind this to a degree, but if it becomes the rule rather than the exception I begin to find it annoying... Plus you have to really be careful that you have your facts strait. Otherwise, they'll Google what you just said and correct you before you finish your sentence. I still haven't adjusted to wondering things out loud, like "I wonder what Babe Ruth's lifetime batting average was?" only to have a young person read it to me from their phone, before going on to tell me more about the Babe than I have ever known...

When I was a teen few people, if any, carried phones around with them everywhere. And, if you wanted to know many facts you had to turn to a set of encyclopedias. Now you could carry several sets around with you and not even come close to being able to access the resources of a pink smart-phone. Now don't get me wrong, I really appreciate my flip-phone, although I have yet to access the Internet from it. 

Now, where do you think smart phones and the Internet are headed in the future? Well for one thing as Baby Boomers, like myself, get older many of us don't hear as well. So phoning or texting friends and family in other rooms or even in the same room, might be helpful. Actually, I guess I would have to start texting since actually talking on a phone seems to a fading art. And, what about the WWW? Well as I understand it those who first developed the basic Web envisioned it having all kinds of positive effects on our world and it has. However, I wonder if any of them envisioned (literally or figuratively) how big a place porn might one day occupy on the Web? And if so, did they have the foresight to rush out and invest heavily in this "Industry" and do they think it's "positive?"

On a different note, I've been thinking of investing in the wireless video cam industry. For one thing, I see the basic crime rate remaining steady at best and likely going up and many are turning to these little gadgets for security of various kinds. The point here is that from your smart-phone or whatever you use to access the net, you can record and/or get a real-time feed from a video cam. And, too many people are no longer just secretly watching their nannies. 

How long will it be, if the time hasn't already arrived, when we'll have to invest in a scanning device for tiny, wireless video cams? Even now, when we check into a Hotel do we need to check and see if the clock-radio or a free pen is also video camera? Perhaps I'll just skip investing in the cams and try to invest in screening devices? 

Will technology continue to filter down to us little guys, to the point where it will be affordable, easy and fun to simply hide disposable little cams in the homes we visit to see and hear what people really have to say about us, among other things, after we leave? Having said this, I wonder if now even fewer people will allow me in their homes or even on their property. After all, many of them are probably tracking my location right now via my $19 flip-phone. God help us all...