How Wifi Changed Society and the World

It is almost impossible to imagine our current life without logging in our social media accounts or watching music videos on youtube or checking in our latest e-mail. And it is equally inconceivable how we ever got through life some decades back without all these online activities. And with wifi made accessible almost everywhere, we can browse on websites even when we are outside of our homes and offices. There’s no question that humanity’s progress has really gone so far and was elevated at a greater height that even when you are miles and miles away from your family and friends, you can still see their faces and chat with them as if they are just beside you through video-audio calls.  

  Our Days, Pre-Wifi Era

Pre-wifi and pre-internet days, literature books are borrowed from public libraries; shopping for bags, shoes, and clothes was a cardio activity as we spend hours searching for the perfect fit; snail mail takes days before the recipient reads your message. Today, you can download an ibook or e-book copy of your favourite Jane Austen novel, you can shop online for your stiletto shoes, and you can send a love letter by just getting the person’s e-mail address (no stamp needed).

Pre-wifi era, no one brags about how many countries they’ve been to or rants about how their breakfast suck this morning. No one feels the need to take a picture of themselves while in a grocery store buying green apples and grapes. People were more private, and no one seemed to mind if people in Nicaragua are starving. While the advent of this technology has its boons and banes, we can safely say that there are more advantages than negative things can be said about our introduction to the virtual world.

 How about today?

Today, you can easily access everything.  You can travel to Singapore and just bring a portable wifi router and you can even work while you are miles away from your workplace as you can access all information with your portable device. You can be in outside your school in Changi and find a wifi rental spot and you can instantly research for your academic paper and finish writing it outside of the school library. You can book your flight to Hong Kong while sitting on a park bench on an easy Sunday morning.  

 The power of wireless connection enabled people to be productive beyond the confines of their homes, schools, and offices. We are also easily informed of important global news without watching television as our social media feeds are often flooded with world reports and happenings almost every minute. In fact, a recent study on people’s social media activities showed that we would rather go online than turning our televisions on.

 The internet is without a doubt, a modern revolution that everyone benefits from.  While initially, internet was only accessed through wired connections,  continuous technological innovation gave birth to the wi-fi technology— and now, you don’t need to be connected through a long stretch of cables as long your mobile device like cell phone, iPad, or laptop is at the nearest “hotspot” where the internet can easily be accessed. And with the yet another technological revolution, more and more people are able to use the internet (some of the internet users are even situated in rural areas)—that we wouldn’t be surprised if most netizens are actively accessing the internet for more than 18 hours per day.

Undeniably, it has become a lifestyle that most people can no longer live without

 Picturing the Future

Now, we can’t even imagine a future without the internet. How would businesses maintain international relation without regularly receiving e-mailed updates from their satellite offices overseas? How will movie stars connect with their fans if they can’t update their Instagram post? How will you access your favourite Netflix series while you are traveling abroad and do not have your pocket wi-fi? Just reading those possibilities is depressing enough.  Without any contentions, this major change of technological dependency has affected a lot of aspects of our lives. And it is quite difficult to imagine life have we not been showered with the gift of convenience that the internet and wi-fi technology brought.   We can only guess what else can the human mind create in the future, but for now, we are happy with the way our virtual life connects and transports us to the farthest land, the most foreign of people, and the seemingly hard-to-reach dreams that we just once imagined.