Congrats to the Internet Who Turned 50 Today

How did we survive so long without it?

Today, October 29th marks the 50th birthday for the internet as it was first conceived when a packet of data was transmitted from UCLA to Stanford via the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (or ARPANET).

At the time of its inception, the internet to most of humanity was of no significance, if even registering at all in the zeitgeist of the late 1960s. Since then it has become part of the fabric of everyday life. It has shaped our everyday activities to such an extent that life without it for a growing generation seems impossible.

H.G. Wells could not have imagined a future shaped by the internet, but it’s not too hard for any sixteen-year-old to think of a day when their brains directly interface with the worldwide web.

So what will the next 50 years look like? With technologies advancing at an exponential rate, what kind of future internet can we imagine? Will the internet be dominated by market forces and force-feed us an endless stream of ads, shaping our thoughts and ideologies unbeknownst to consumers? Or will it be something far worse?

Children attached to screens on their phones is just the beginning. The question is, the beginning of what?