28 Jul The Internet of Things
So, what do we know about the internet of things?
Well, for something that is being mentioned in every other sentence in every publication/website on an hourly basis, surprisingly little!
The term, ‘internet of things’, couldn’t be more vague really, short of being called ‘stuff that does stuff’. I think the term is encouraging us to believe it covers pretty much every part of our day to day lives, which in fact it does, or it soon will do. From waking up in the morning and making that first cup of tea, to getting in the shower, to ordering an uber to get you to work and pre-ordering lunch in your favourite restaurant our lives are soon set to become taken over by the kind of technology that promises to make our lives easier, and more linear. But will that really be the case?
I think people already spend too much time on their phones, i myself am included in this statement, just to clarify. The trains, buses and walks to work are like scene from Shaun of the Dead, hapless zombies fixated to their devices, with complete disregard to everything around them. Perhaps the most worrying of these examples, one i witness all to often, is people driving around town with their phone in their hand, probably checking their Facebook or texting someone, it’s insanity not quite of the highest degree, but I’m pretty sure it’s up there.
In my honest opinion, smart living, technology and the ‘internet of things’ should make us put our phones down, talk to each other, make eye contact and engage in the real world a little bit more. My thoughts are that the technology should work for us, know what we want, as we want it, know where we are, without having to tippy tappy on our phones constantly. If the technology we use is so fragmented that we are constantly having to switch between apps and tell our phones what we want then surely it is luring us into a false sense of security and what we are being sold isn’t actually helping us, its just giving us more ‘stuff’ to do?
Now done get me wrong, i’m not in the habit of steering us away from the dawn of a new technological era – that would be pretty bloody stupid of me given my chosen path, I’m sure you’ll agree. What i am saying though is that we, as consumers, and early adopters of technology have to try and recognise what is going to be useful, what is going to work. We should define the technology we use by our needs and what we demand, we should recognise what is useful to us and what is just a gimmick.
No Comments