How to Recognize the Future When It Lands on You REVISION

Howard Rheingold’s “How to Recognize the Future When It Lands on You” discusses how mobile devices affect everyone’s social practices and how technology will shape our future. After reading this quote, “The sight of this behavior, now commonplace in much of the world triggered a sensation I had experienced a few times before-- the instant recognition that a technology is going to change my life in ways I can scarcely imagine, ” I started to wonder what the future will be like in a ten years.

Rheingold talks about how technology has evolved throughout the years. Personal Computers evolved in the 1980’s. Since then, PCs have become so much more powerful and have a sleeker look. In the 1990’s the Internet evolved. The Internet became open to hundreds of millions of people. Since then, the Internet connection has become much faster and has become wireless. In addition, mobile telephones are much faster, sleeker, and have internet connection and many more capabilities than they previously had five years ago. Ten years ago people could not have imagined what mobile devices and technology the future held. Mobile telephones now have “location awareness” in which they can spot where they are located. Through text messages, in Manila, Smart Mobs organized revolts and demonstrations to overthrow their president in 2001. Communities of interest are being created on the internet. In Helsinki and Tokyo you can use vending machines through the use of your telephone and you can get directions on your wireless from where you presently are to where you want to go. In Japan, people can locate dates in their area through their mobile phones. Presently, people lend their computers to those who search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Many businesses now receive a lot of their revenues through sales online, many cafes and restaurants have wireless internet to attract more costumers, radio chips are used instead of barcodes on some objects in stores, subcultures in Europe and Asia have evolved through the use of mobile telephones, and so much more. Rheingold predicts that “within a decade, the major population centers of the planet will be saturated with trillions of microchips.” These advances in technology and mobile devices have made “certain kinds of human actions possible that were never possible before” (Rheingold). This makes one wonder “what’s next in this self-accelerating spiral of technological, economic, and social change,” (Rheingold).

If these technological advances have erupted within only a couple of decades, what other technological advances will there be in the future? No one could have possibly imagined or predicted all of these advances to occur. It makes me wonder what the future will be like in just ten years. Just like Rheingold, after witnessing all of these technological advances, and how much of a role technology plays in people’s lives, I have realized that technology will change my life in ways I cannot even envision. I wonder if there will be an end to technological advances, or if they will keep on evolving?

Curious about how technology will influence our future, I decided to research it and found a YouTube video about robots that will perform surgery in the future! These will save time and money and improve surgery. It will improve surgery by making recovery for patients faster and making them lose less blood. People’s hands shake but robots are steady, so the incisions will be perfect. Rheingold’s prediction within a decade, the major population centers of the planet will be saturated with trillions of microchips is accurate. Even surgery in the future will revolve around microchips! These robots will make surgery more precise and much better than ever before. Rheingold was completely right that technology is going to change our lives in ways that we could not imagine. If robots are going to be performing surgery, what other technological advances does the future hold for us?