Wi-Fi Changed the World

Wi-Fi is the most significant technological advancement of my generation. I am a 31-year-old who remembers being stuck on the dial-up internet craze wondering if it would ever allow me to log on. Remember picking up the phone and hearing the zings and zaps of the internet instead of a dial tone? Sweet memories. It feels like a huge crutch to go anywhere that does not have Wi-Fi, am I right? As a society, we are more connected than ever. No, not to each other, but to the internet. We are plugged in. Unplugging is not an option.

If you gain an entry level job out of college and express to your boss that you do not have an email account, how do you think they will react? It is a fact that everyone must be well versed in digital technology in order to be marketable as an employee. Consider this, “Around 40% of the world population has an internet connection today. In 1995, it was less than 1%. The number of internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013. The first billion was reached in 2005. The second billion in 2010. The third billion in 2014” (Internet Live Stats, 2016). The increase in connectivity suggests the trend of being digital technology savvy is not going to waver. There is such a generation known as the Wi-Fi generation. An entire age group that knows no differently than being connected, whether by smartphone, iPhone, PlayStation (or other gaming device), even infant video monitors. Want a visual? Check out this live tally of people on the internet right now! 

The ways in which Wi-Fi affects our world are amazing. Wi-Fi has allowed for healthcare aid, environmental aid, advancements in news reporting and entertainment, even education has been affected. “A math teacher instructing her students about parallel and perpendicular lines had them use their cell phone cameras to photograph items in their everyday lives that illustrate such lines, then email the photos in for display. A physics instructor teaching about astronomy had his students use apps on their smartphones to map the night sky. Schools that once had to seek grants for funding to bring the Internet into their classrooms now have students carrying broadband Internet with them in their pockets” (Joseph, 2016). Wi-Fi opened up possibilities. The world will never be the same.

References

(2016). Internet Live Stats. Retrieved from http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/

Joseph, C. (2016). How Wireless Communication Changed the World. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/wireless-communication-changed-world-33596.html