Introduction and Becoming

[Terri]

Introduction
Kevin Kelly claimed that the computer age really began when computers were connected to the telephone because it evolved our society by using the Internet, websites, and mobile systems. He identified the major trends that had moved the computer age and the twelve roots that created them that are still actively developing. These roots, he calls the “inevitable” technological forces, will continue to influence new technologies and shape the next three decades. Kelly explained that the purpose of his book is to prepare society for the inevitable perpetual technologies and their impact on our global society and that we must embrace them in order to “tame” them.

Chapter One - Becoming
Kelly contends that the future will be a constant upgrade and in the state of “becoming”. The network of interdependent technologies will be continually upgrading, changing features, or morphing at a rate that will cause everyone to always be in a “newbie” state because we won’t be able to keep up or have time to master anything. We will engage in the momentum of technology because we will continue to want the latest and greatest and it is this discontent that people have that Kelly identifies as a root and to consider it in planning the future. Kelly coined this state of becoming driven by technology as “protopia”. He describes protopia as an unnoticeable circle that will continually expand on yesterday’s inventions creates today’s problems and tomorrow’s solutions. We do not notice the incremental changes produced by the protopian but he advises that we should embrace these changes as forming our future. He supports his protopian theory using examples of the past to anticipate the future. He stated that we failed to predict the power of the Internet and what it would become. People anticipated that the Internet would be like television but with 5,000 channels instead of 5 to get relevant text-based information, but the problem was who could afford to create the content. Coders followed rules to keep the web from commercialism and private and personal business. It was argued that online learning, shopping, and networking were futuristic fantasies, yet they have evolved and became reality. It was unimaginable that “billions of users” would provide the majority of the content on the web; for example YouTube, Facebook, blogs, and websites. He claimed the inevitable in “becoming” is the hyperlinked world of humans and machines that have embedded in our daily lives.