* Pew study fuels this editor’s paranoid musings on the future
In that recent much-touted Pew Internet survey – the one in which 66% of 1,286 “technology experts and scholars” predicted our networked infrastructure (or power grid) would suffer at least one “devastating attack” within 10 years – I found two other predictions equally alarming: * 56% of respondents agreed that as telecommuting and home-schooling expand, the boundary between work and leisure will diminish. and family dynamics will change because of that.
In that recent much-touted Pew Internet survey – the one in which 66% of 1,286 “technology experts and scholars” predicted our networked infrastructure (or power grid) would suffer at least one “devastating attack” within 10 years – I found two other predictions equally alarming:
* 56% of respondents agreed that as telecommuting and home-schooling expand, the boundary between work and leisure will diminish. and family dynamics will change because of that.
* 59% of respondents agreed that more government and business surveillance will occur as computing devices proliferate and become embedded in appliances, cars, phones and even clothes.
In other words, beware “the telework threat” and the “home networking threat” – ominous, no?
I can see it now, part-time teleworkers, so enthralled with spending a couple of days a week at home with no one to talk to but the dog or goldfish, nothing to do but office work, house work, cooking and home improvement projects, will cease coming to the office entirely. With all those hours saved from commuting they’ll be thrashing around for more to do and – hit upon the kids!
It’s not enough to just let them in the door at 3 p.m. (they have no key, of course, you’re there!) and follow them around peddling Cheez-Its and asking about their day. It’s not enough to “help” with the homework. What you really want is to have them home all day, to spend your nights drawing up Internet lesson plans. To teach them the right way, chalk in hand (you know you’re smarter than teachers anyway!) – all while meeting the demands of your corporate day job. Of course, of course, it’s only natural. You’re a teleworker.
Remarkably, at the same time, as we put Linksys routers under the Christmas tree, expand our broadband home networks to include telephones, ovens and the family Volvo; as we populate the home network with all manner of fun and games, of live video of far flung friends and family – in actuality, we are unwitting collaborators in a joint government-business plot to (further) erode our Constitutional freedoms. The federal government, Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Verizon, Comcast – and of course Cisco/Linksys – all in cahoots.
Soon “they” will be eyeing us from our networked security cameras, from with inside our TVs, PC displays, our oven windows. Agents will be counting our keystrokes, reading our e-mail (oh, wait, they do that already), following us around the Web. RFID tags in our clothing and GPRS systems in our cars will ensure the keen tracking of every trip to the store for milk, every trip to Staples for more chalk…
