The focus of one of our recent class discussions regarded the internet and how it affects how we take up with the world around us, especially in a cognitive sense. After perusing through the myriad of online reflections upon the subject I would like to work out some reflections of my own as they relate to the internet. To me, the internet is still somewhat mysterious…
When I think of the internet, I usually envision it as a massive conglomeration of tangled and twisted wiring. I’m not really sure why I think of the internet in this way, but I do. As I sift (in my thoughts of course) amongst the excessively intertwined mess of cords and cables which provide transit to the stream of ceaselessly pulsing information, I wonder to exactly what fixture is this entire system grounded. Have you ever wondered that? It might help elucidate what exactly I’m talking about if I offer an example. Let’s, for instance, take a house. A house has many rooms and doors and hallways, all spaces through which one may travel when passing through one’s own home. These passages and spaces are fixed in place and provided their grounding from the structure upon which they are established. The firmament and edifice upon which these features are established provide the very foundation for their existence. Let’s apply this same scenario, in an analogous way, to the internet. Upon what do these cords and cables lie? Now I know that there aren’t really cords and cables which compose the “internet” per say (in reality there are actually some cords and cables involved; although culturally, we are increasingly moving in a wireless direction, but that’s another topic), but the illustration helps I think. Anyway, the internet is a streaming compilation of information and data shunted to and fro across our modern digital landscape. However, the question still stands: what supports all of this? Upon what structure does all of the information rest? Does it rest upon the several tens of millions of computers that are connected in tandem across the world? If so, these computers obviously make up an extremely large network, one which is evidently profound and extensive. Who maintains the integrity of this network? Where are the chief junctions which support the network? Who connects these terminals in a successful and efficient manner? What offers ultimate stability to these oftentimes unruly and dissident connections? And this question brings me back, in a rather circular way, to my original question: to what and how exactly is the internet grounded? When I think of the internet long enough, I come to realize exactly how little I actually know about it.
I think many times in our modern world we take things for granted to the point of passivity. And I think that humanity has done this generally with a great many things, including the internet. We are so enmeshed in an internet-driven world that we really could care less what exactly the internet is. All of us are a part of an unfathomably huge anomaly in the history of humanity, and for the most part we don’t really know anything about it. We are being passively carried along by an alien creation, a creation which in itself often works to spawn passivity and lethargy. Although I am somewhat wary of Borgmann’s disdain for modern technology, I must agree that we are increasingly drawn away from activity which uses skill and assemblages of proactive behaviors on our part. And I think that the internet may be one reason for this occurrence. I can only imagine how long it will be before our society trades the supermarket in for an internet-supported food market. I mean, think about it. By our standards today, the Nintendo Entertainment System is nearly a relic, one replaced by massive online multiplayer games and games which capitalize on the communal aspects of the internet. Fifteen years ago, who would have thought that that would have happened? Therefore, it’s not really that hard to fathom a time when almost all things will be consumed by the internet. Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate much of what the internet does for humanity and would never wish it away; but with that being said, I will say that we need to work to better understand those things which we interact with on a daily basis (e.g. the internet). This may be the only recourse which routes the further engenderment of a passivity which already plagues humanity.
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