56K-internet

I miss 56K dial up internet.

The glorious sound of digital connection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0&ab_channel=WilliamTermini

I don’t miss the slow speed or the clogged phone lines, but I do miss what 56K dial up represented about the internet and our relationship to it at the time.

This soundtrack of getting on-line represented a distinct separation of usage compared to today’s “always on” culture.

We had to log on to the internet, and we also had to log off.

There was a sonic barrier between our physical world and the new wonders of digitally “surfing” the information of the net.

A definitive line in the sand to make where one realm ended and another began.

Welcome to cyber-space.

The internet was clearly a destination, somewhere to visit for a time – then to leave and rejoin the physical world again. The door could be shut and re-opened again at another time.

You are now disconnected. You are now free of the internet.

Today, the internet is a state of being.

It’s no longer a destination that we can close off with a gateway.

It is the stream of information – our ever-present maximal flow of self-expression, societal projection, social posturing, “fake news” and doom scrolling.

Much of the mainstream internet feels less like a place where I want to belong and more like a dumpster fire where I have to be, with many may voices trying to take our attention away from what really matters.

For example, being “Idle” in a chat messenger can now be construed as being “lazy” by your employer.

If you’re not on social media sharing details of your life for an audience, the assumption among some is something is “wrong” with you. Social media has tied a digital self to the physical self. Social media has made everyone into an entertainer.

There are unspoken social contracts these apps construct – “Like my photo and I’ll like yours, and that’s how we show we’re really connected and we’re friends in real life”.

Memes have become a primary communication tool in some of my friendships. We don’t talk about our the content of our days, about our future aspiration or anything substantial. We just share the latest meme that’s making the rounds on IG, and cry laugh emoji onto the next sharing.

This connection can be quite enriching (and hilarious) but I yearn for something more. Yes, we can intentionally have deeper conversations, but I’d like the memes to be secondary.

I’d like the background noise to be the background noise.

I sometimes think about the rapid rate of technological acceleration in just my own life.

The TVs used to be big and heavy when I was a kid…now the TVs can display who rings the doorbell or help you order groceries for your connected smart fridge.

My Dad’s lifetime is marked by even greater advancement – he went from black and white television to this current era of 5G internet. Truly insane to reflect on…

And we’ve been so busy advancing onto the next thing that I don’t think we’ve really had the opportunity to reflect on how insane that shift actually is.

Source

With AI on the horizon to drastically change everything, everywhere, all at once - the feelings of uncertainty are sinking in deeper.

Will I have a job as a developer if ChatGPT can code in React? Will I have a job as a photographer if Midjourney can create hyper-realistic commercial images? What job skills should I focus on to be employable for the next 10 years? Will we even know what jobs will be around then?

I’m stuck missing simpler times.

Perhaps I’m just getting older and this is the cliche grumpy old man getting mad at the new generation trope. But I’m too young to be feeling this old about the world around me.

I’m stuck missing the times when my off-line self was separate from my digital persona.

I miss 56K dial up internet.