How Did We Get Here?

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How did we get here?

An essay on human entanglement

Author

Amber Case

Essay Text

How did we become so entwined with the machine? At first it was a plaything for us in childhood. And for others, something we found in college. Something so exciting. And whether our first device was the Altair, the Atari or the EMAC, the Apple II or iPhone, whether the software was command line, punch cards, Linux, or Windows, something that made us more powerful - reach our limits , have a new way to communicate with others, and live life in a different and new way, especially if those around us.

But for others who are just beginning to use these devices and systems, their relationship is not of creation, of new territory and incredible leaps of excitement. It's consumption. It's taken-for-grantedness. It is shiny and beautiful.

Though there are still many who are like the ones before, who are stitching together things in backwater places in new ways, there is an increasingly general public that whose default is to be connected. It makes it more difficult to find those who are pioneers.