If the planet had a backbone, the internet would be it.

When looking at my blog posts over the past 13 weeks it is clear that the internet (in particular social media) has had a significant influence throughout the entire course.  Not only has it changed the way that humans communicate, educate, protest, purchase and entertain but it has also changed the way simple objects interact with the world.

This video provided by IBM sums up the notion of the internet of things well as they suggest that the planet has grown a ‘a central nervous system’ connecting everything from people to water pipes. Although many sceptics argue that by depending upon the internet for so many things will have dystopian consequences, I believe that this unprecedented connectedness will have a positive impact upon our word. By harnessing these systems and allowing products to become easier, smarter and better our daily tasks will become even more simplified then they already are. In addition to this, there are numerous other positives including health and environmental  benefits that we are already beginning to experience  without even noticing it. A few of these benefits are outlined in the CISCO video below:

It is clear that the internet has impacted on so many areas of life that it surpasses even the wildest expectations of the innovators that created it. And as a closing note, I believe that in another 10 years time we will look back on this moment and realise that today, we hadn’t  even begun to scratch the surface.

This weeks topic was one of the most interesting of the whole course. At first I couldn’t comprehend what the whole notion was about but after researching and gaining a slight understanding of what the ‘internet of things’ actually means I found this topic to fit perfectly as the concluding chapter of the global networks course.