Internet of Things

Internet of Things

November 2023
The Internet of Things 
The internet can be a double-edged  
sword. So learn to use it with wisdom  
or else it will consume your life, says  
Sujatha Rao 
“Both my kids have their heads  
perpetually buried in their phones.  
The only family conversations we have  
are on our WhatsApp family group.” 
“My son has started falling behind in his  
academics. With some of the classes and  
assignments shifted to the online platform,  
I simply don’t know what he is doing on his  
devices all the time.” 
“Since the time she hit puberty, my  
daughter is constantly stressed out.  
She feels she is not pretty enough. Her  
insecurity is making her spend a lot of time  
on Instagram, hankering after likes for her  
photos.” 
46 LifePositive | NOVEMBER 2023

Hearing these refrains from my friends and  relatives from the younger generation, I have  been feeling lucky to have raised my child before  the advent of mobile phones. I empathised  with these young parents, often joining the  bandwagon of thrashing the so-called ‘mobile  generation’ and their addiction to the internet. 
And then I read Sapiens: A Brief History of  Humankind by Yuval Harari, where he talks  about how the world expected people to be  living in space colonies on Mars and Pluto by  the end of the century against the backdrop  of Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind”  in 1969, but nobody foresaw the coming of the  internet.  
This realisation jolted me like nothing else did  in recent times, and it set me thinking. Even  if mankind had managed to inhabit space as  expected, it would have been accessible only  to the lucky few, whereas the internet is made  accessible and affordable to almost everyone  
today irrespective of financial, geographical,  racial, or cultural differences. 
Then images of those much-hated long queues  in front of movie theatres, railway counters, or  almost any counter for that matter, flashed in  front of me, unleashing the following thoughts: 
• Am I not thrilled about being able to carry out  everything from the cosy comfort of my home at  the click of a button or a key on the keyboard  thanks to the internet? 
• Did I not wonder about how many trees  digitalisation has saved? Am I not feeling  extremely happy about being able to carry a  whole library in my handbag thanks to my  e-reader?  
• After a career spanning decades in finance,  have I not been feeling that it’s nothing short of  a miracle to be carrying a universal bank in my  mobile phone enabling me to purchase anything  and everything without having to step out of  the house during a raging pandemic, especially  when I am into my senior citizen years?  

The internet has virtually brought the whole world within one’s grasp
Technology 47 
One of the happiest groups using the free  WhatsApp messages and calls happens to be that  of the senior citizens who, having so much time  on their hands in their post-retirement days, are  busy texting and forwarding messages, photos,  and videos.  

• Is it not wonderful to think about the future  generation not having to waste time on menial  jobs, thanks to the innovations in the artificial  intelligence field? 
Aren’t all the above things nothing short of  miracles being enjoyed by the rich and the poor  alike, just like the natural wonders of the world,  thanks to the very thing that we find so offensive  when the young generation obsessively hangs  onto certain media hosted on it?  
Let’s now learn a bit about the history of the  internet and how it came to weave itself into the  fabric of our day-to-day lives so inseparably. 
The origins 
Though January 1, 1983, is considered the official  birthday of the internet as there was no uniform  and standard way of communication prior to this,  it was way back in the nineteen sixties that the  internet started between government researchers  as a way to communicate amongst themselves.  Right from the beginning, it was based on the  premise of international collaboration, primarily  between the USA, the UK, and France. 
48 LifePositive | NOVEMBER 2023
The omnipresence 
From the monstrous-sized mainframes to the  pocket-sized mobile phones, and from the  serpentine cables in the lab to the Wi-Fi, the  internet has come a long way in making itself  almost invisible while simultaneously being  omnipresent.  
Soon, landlines may join the long list of items  such as clocks, calculators, calendars, alarms,  timers, etc. that have been wiped out by the  proliferating mobile phones. The present  generation may not be able to comprehend how  to operate those dial phones that existed at the  beginning of the 20th century.  
The generation that depended on ‘PP (Private  Party) Trunk Calls’ is far beyond these people’s  imagination. For all the nostalgia that these  things bring to the people of that generation,  for Generation Z (people born between 1997  and 2012), they might as well have belonged  to the stone age. If they generate any kind of  feeling in them, sadly, it’s that of genuinely  felt pity because life without Wi-Fi for most of  them is unimaginable.  

Technology 49

However, it’s not just Gen Z that has lapped  up the opportunities opening up with the  ubiquitous internet. There are so many YouTube  channels out there showcasing the talents of the  baby boomers (people born between 1946 and  1964). One of the happiest groups using the free  WhatsApp messages and calls happens to be  that of the senior citizens who, having so much  time on their hands in their post-retirement  days, are busy texting and forwarding messages,  photos, and videos.  
The other view 
It struck me that how we use the internet is up to  us human beings. Today, if we are reeling under  the side effects of overeating sugary products  and drinking sweetened beverages, the problem  is not with sugar. The problem lies with us. 
Similarly, we cannot want to have the internet  for free and enjoy its multifaceted benefits and,  at the same time, crib about how it is running  our lives by getting addicted to some facets of  it. Like most of the lifestyle issues that we have  created for ourselves of late, the solution for  
this menace too lies within ourselves.  
The following tips are aimed at helping us  overcome some of the challenges faced in this  regard:  
• Setting limits 
Since the day Reema decided to set ‘device  time’ for herself and her two children in their  pre-teens, she feels life has become much  more manageable. Despite her children’s  acrimonious attitude towards it at times, she is  breathing easy as they finish their homework on  time (well, almost) and are engaging themselves  in some sort of physical activity. She has also  blocked certain risky sites permanently from  her children’s devices and has been putting in  efforts to monitor their online presence.  
These days, even our mobile phones send  us reports with data on what we have been  browsing and how much time we have been  spending on it, enabling us to aim at setting  targets for ourselves. As the cliché goes, “What  can be measured can be managed.” 

Setting device time for internet browsing helps a family not lose out on interpersonal bonding  

• Turning off notifications 
When David gets into project mode, he turns off  all the notifications on his devices and focusses  on the task at hand without distractions. Project or not, it pays to turn off notifications  on all our devices, as we can always check them  later on.  
The latest research shows that the human  hormone dopamine causes ‘seeking’ behaviour,  not just connected to physical needs but also to  abstract concepts. With social media platforms  such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.,  we now have instant gratification from the  dopamine-induced loop of seeking and getting  rewarded. To get out of this loop, we need to  turn off the notifications or cues.  
• Rewarding ourselves  
Seema allows screen time to her schoolgoing  daughter as a reward when she completes an  assigned task. She says this has been really  working well for her family so far. 
This can work wonders even for adults like us  who can relax with well-earned browsing time  after we complete some of those rigorous tasks  so that we feel motivated to complete such not 
so-welcome tasks. We can take the help of other  family members or friends so that it works out  even better. 
• Limiting the number of apps 
When people plan to reduce weight, they make  it a point not to bring junk food home. Some  people also arrange salads and other healthy  food options within sight in their refrigerators  while the unhealthy options are kept far out of  reach. Extending similar logic, we should limit  the number of apps on our phone screens. We  are well off with the entertainment apps out  of our easy reach so that our precious time is  first spent on time-sensitive activities that are  important to us. 
Conclusion 
Nuclear energy can be used to light the world or  send it into an apocalypse of mass destruction.  Similarly, how we use the power of the internet  is up to us. We can make technology work for us  by being mindful of its impact on us. 
We can choose to light up our lives or fall prey  to the dark webs that lie underneath its surface.  At the same time, we should be wary of the  fact that it is the responsibility of us adults to  protect the children by nudging them towards  safe practices.  
As Gretchen Rubin said, “Technology is a good  servant but a bad master.”  
Let’s not forget that we are the masters.

Sujatha Rao is a retired banker. She has been contributing articles to various newspapers and  magazines over the last two decades. Two of her short stories were placed third in Times of India’s  national level Write India contest (Seasons 1 and 2). Her first book titled In the Company of Sto ries was published recently. Her other interests include reading, traveling, practising yoga, and  mindfulness.