A Day Made of Glass - A Glimpse into the near future.

Glass manufacturer Corning gives us this glimpse into the world of tomorrow. 

A world where we are always connected.

Technology, as all of us know, is bringing us together, faster and faster, closer and closer, all the time. We are all connected, with the use of wireless devices we are all instantly in communication with each other, and distances are as nothing. In a flash you can talk to anyone, in even less time you can receive data in the form of text messages and emails.  All of this is happening, and yet at the same time we seem to be more and more distant from each other in certain ways.  Many of us now live in gated communities, cut off from the world and from our neighbors. We ride in our own enclosed cars and then we retreat into our own private houses, whereupon we sit in front of our own private screens, be they television, computer monitor or smartphone -- and then, once alone, we "connect."

The same issues prevail in the workplace. Technology encourages us to work more and more by ourselves, connecting to others only via e-mail and telephone.

How did we get to this place, stuck in this paradox of more connection and more isolation at the same time?

 Social networks like Facebook gives us a false sense of being part of a community without any real physical contact. Is this a preview of the future? Will our grandchildren live in a world where they only interact through avatars or surrogates?

Pretty soon, gone will be the days when entertainment took place in theaters,  concert halls,  cinemas and dance halls. Entertainment will be streamed to you wherever you want it. Remember when there was no other way to have a spontaneous live conversation with another person except by meeting him or her on the street or in the rum shop. Things happened in public; that was taken for granted. Communication existed mainly by letter, and had a whole other form of existence, more leisurely and thoughtful, in a sense, carefully and deliberately composed pieces of writing, not rapid-fire exchanges. The expectation of instant reply -- indeed, the expectation of a speedy resolution of almost any issue, be it a relationship, a business matter, or a simple invitation -- was simply not there.

I know that technology is here to stay but we must be careful that we don’t embrace it to the extent where we lose our sense of community and by extension, our humanity. Imaging how hard it would be today to survive in a world without automobiles, telephones, internet, electricity? For hundreds of years man did just that and prospered but we have already become so dependant on these things that we cannot even imaging living without them. Cast you mind into the future to the time depicted in the video. As mankind become more and more reliant on technology,.... what will happen to us if we lost it?

Quote of the Day

 "Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it."  Max Frisch