Some Things Shouldn't be Converged

The concept known as convergence is really taking over our world, especially in the world of technology. Not only is technology converging with every aspect of society, but different realms are converging with other ones, even outside of that technology zone called the “Net” in a 2005 Time Magazine Article (which you can read by following this link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981132,00.html).

This article was really interesting to me, even though it was written so long ago. Interestingly enough, while I was reading it, I felt almost as though it was even older than five years ago. It seemed as though they were talking about the internet like it was just up and running, but I remember using it extensively when I was 10 years old, and that was in 2001, so to read this article knowing when it was actually written seemed very strange to me.

Thinking about this article in the context of convergence brings up a few thoughts for me. The same issues that the article speaks about are definitely continued today, and though some of the individual cases have been resolved, the idea of convergence in itself has intensified. More and more people are figuring out ways to abuse the internet and converge their worlds, whether that be of business and making money, or advertisement, or just plain messing with people, with technology, or other areas of society via the internet.

One part of the article that stuck out to me was a quote from Martin Nisenholtz, an advertising executive who “drew up a set of guidelines for marketing to the Net,” the first one being “Intrusive E-mail is unwelcome.” This particularly affected me recently, when I discovered that my email account had been hacked and someone, (or someone’s script) had been accessing my account and using my personal email to spread around a link to everyone in my address book that when clicked, attempts to get all sorts of identity thieving information.

It’s really sad that this is what the internet has become. It wasn’t meant to be this way. It was created to “enable academic and military researchers to continue to do government work even if part of the network were taken out in a nuclear attack.” Basically, it was meant to be an information highway, in which people could send and receive information quickly. However, instead of just adding a positive tool to our lives that we could use to simplify daily tasks, it has also created many other problems. In terms of convergence, we have now created a world in which local criminals can be converged with national, and even international, citizens.


Photo taken from: http://powerideaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/hacker.jpg