Catanduanes State University

COLLEGE OF INFORMATION AND

COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY
Virac, Catanduanes

LEARNING MATERIALS AND COMPILATION OF

LECTURES/ACTIVITIES

GEC3
LIVING IN THE I.T. ERA
 D IS C LAIME R

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College of Information and Communications Technology

 C H AP TE R 5: D AR K S ID E OF THE IN TE RN E T

LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Differentiate the utopian and dystopian views of the internet;
2. Determine the rate of progress of acceleration in media and information;
3. Define the causes and effects of internet addiction and isolation; and
4. Distinguish the impact of selective exposure on political polarization.

KEY TERMS
1. Utopia
2. Dystopia
3. Internet invariants
4. Media messages
5. Internet addiction
6. Selective exposure
7. Political polarization
 L E S S O N 1 : UT O PI A AN D D YS T O PI AN V I E W S OF T HE I NT E RNE T

1.1 Explaining Utopia and Dystopia

A utopia is a place, state, or condition that is ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws, customs, and
conditions. This does not mean that the people are perfect, but the system is perfect. Technological
Utopia refers to a world in which technological advancement would enhance the living conditions in
an almost utopian or idealistic manner.

Characteristics of a Utopian Society

• Information, independent thought, and freedom are promoted.

• A figurehead or concept brings the citizens of the society together, but not treated as singular.
• Citizens are truly free to think independently.
• Citizens have no fear of the outside world.
• Citizens live in a harmonious state.
• The natural world is embraced and revered.
• Citizens embrace social and moral ideals. Individuality and innovation are welcomed.
• The society evolves with change to make a perfect utopian world.

A dystopia is an imagined universe in which oppressive societal control or an apocalypse has created
a world in which the conditions of life are miserable, characterized by human misery, poverty,
oppression, violence, disease, and/or pollution. Anti-utopias appear to be utopian or were intended to
be so, but a fatal flaw or other factor has destroyed or twisted the intended utopian world or concept,
such as in The Giver. Dystopias and anti-utopias are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic,
technological, moral, or totalitarian control. Through an exaggerated worst-case scenario, authors make
a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political system through their dystopias / anti-utopias.

Characteristics of a Dystopian Society

• Propaganda is used to control the citizens of society.

• Information, independent thought, and freedom are restricted.
• A figurehead or concept is worshipped by the citizens of the society.
• Citizens are perceived to be under constant surveillance.
• Citizens have a fear of the outside world.
• Citizens live in a dehumanized state.
• The natural world is banished and distrusted.
• Citizens conform to uniform expectations. Individuality and dissent are bad.
• The society is an illusion of a perfect utopian world.

1.2 How we see the Internet

When we think about the Internet, what comes to mind for many of us is something beyond the
technology of the Internet itself. By definition, the Internet is a technical system: a communications
infrastructure that enables networks around the globe to interconnect. It’s a network of networks. That
said, over the past two decades, the Internet has come to mean far more than just the technology. With
more than 4 billion people online today, the Internet is now an integral part of the social and economic
fabric of many communities around the world.

In order to fully understand the effects of the Internet on society, we should remember that technology
is material culture. It is produced in a social process in a given institutional environment on the basis
of the ideas, values, interests, and knowledge of their producers, both their early producers and their
subsequent producers. In this process we must include the users of the technology, who appropriate
and adapt the technology rather than adopting it, and by so doing they modify it and produce it in an
endless process of interaction between technological production and social use.

1.3 Fundamental Properties of the Internet

In the history of humankind, few technologies have resulted in such widespread social and economic
change in a relatively short period of time. Growing nearly 900% from 400 million in 2000 to more than
4 billion users today, the Internet has had an unprecedented impact on economies and societies around
the globe.

Conversely, the impact of the Internet on society has also transformed how we use the Internet. It is no
longer just the home of email, static webpages, and discussion boards. Today’s Internet is so much
more. It’s a dynamic space for collaboration, commerce, and expression. Video currently accounts for
more than two-thirds of all Internet traffic, and people accessing the Internet via smartphones now
dominate.

In spite of all this dynamism, certain properties of the Internet persist. These properties, which we call
“invariants,” have been the foundation for the Internet since its earliest days. At the same time, it’s
because of these invariants that the Internet has become such a dynamic resource. These
characteristics are at the heart of the Internet’s success – they have enabled the Internet to serve as a
platform for seemingly limitless innovation, economic growth and opportunities for people everywhere.

Internet Invariants – what really matters about the Internet

Before detailing what we mean by Internet invariants, it is important to clarify that these fundamental,
unchanging properties of the Internet are aspirational or ideal conditions. As the Internet moves away
from these ideal conditions, we believe the dynamism and innovation that the Internet supports will
necessarily diminish. You can think of the Internet as an idea of how networks of computers
communicate, and the invariants describe the most important features of that idea. This concept of
the Internet as an idea is operationalized through some familiar protocols (e.g., Internet Protocol,
Border Gateway Protocol) and functions (e.g., the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority).

A network that does not have these fundamental properties is not the Internet.

The Internet has global reach and integrity, and is not constrained in terms of supported services and
applications:

8. Global reach, integrity: Any endpoint of the Internet can address any other endpoint, and the
information received at one endpoint is as intended by the sender, wherever the receiver
connects to the Internet. Implicit in this is the requirement for globally-unique addressing and
naming services.
9. General purpose: The Internet is capable of supporting a wide range of demands for its use.
While some networks within it may be optimized for certain traffic patterns or expected uses,
the technology does not place inherent limitations on the applications or services that make use
of it. The Internet supports more than the World Wide Web and email.
The Internet is for everyone – there is no central authority that designates or permits different
classes of Internet activities.
10. Supports innovation without requiring permission: Anyone can create a new service, that
abides by the existing standards and best practices, and make it available to the rest of the
Internet, without requiring special permission. This “permissionless innovation” is crucial to the
Internet’s success — it removes the barriers to entry. From the World W ide Web to social
networking, from BitTorrent to Bitcoins, many of the applications that billions of Internet users
enjoy every day, and the many that will be developed in the future, are a product of this
fundamental characteristic.
11. Accessible: There are no inherent limitations on who can access, build, and study the Internet.
Anyone can connect to the Internet, not just to consume content from others, but also to
contribute content on existing services, create new services, and attach entirely new networks.
The Internet requires some basic agreements and social behaviour between technologies and
between humans
12. Based on interoperability and mutual agreement: The Internet is a network of autonomous
networks. It works because those networks can communicate with each other, based on
voluntary adoption of the open standards for the technologies that support it, and through the
mutual agreements made between network operators.
13. Collaboration: Overall, a spirit of collaboration is required. Beyond the initial basis for
interoperability (open standards and mutual agreements), the best solutions to new issues that
 arise stem from willing collaboration between stakeholders. These are sometimes competitive
business interests and sometimes different stakeholders altogether. Addressing new issues in
a collaborative fashion ensures a diversity of views and reduces the risk of unilateral actions
having unintended negative consequences for the Internet and its users.
Although no specific technology defines the Internet, there are some basic characteristics that
describe what works
14. Technology, reusable building blocks: The Internet is comprised of numerous technologies
that together create the Internet as we know it today; however, each individual technology, or
building block, may be used for unintended purposes. For example, the Domain Name System
(DNS) was developed to provide a distributed name-to-address mapping service, but is now
also used to share keying material for securing online transactions. Operational restrictions on
the generalized functionality of technologies as originally designed have a negative impact on
their viability as building blocks for future solutions.
And, finally, the more the Internet stays the same, the more it changes:
15. No permanent favourites: The Internet has no permanent favourites. In the 1990s, Netscape
and Mosaic were among the most popular web browsers on the Internet. And before the Web
itself there was Gopher. Before Facebook and Twitter, MySpace was the dominant social
network. Today, more people access the Internet with a mobile device than from a desktop
computer. Continued success depends on continued relevance and utility, not strictly some
favoured status. Good ideas are overtaken by better ideas and this is part of the natural
evolution of the Internet.

1.4 Abilities arising from the Internet

The invariants described above are what the society believes to be the fundamental characteristics that
make the Internet such a powerful and special medium for communication, sharing and innovation.
Majority believed that these invariants empower users with certain abilities. These abilities stem from
the invariants and underpin the social and economic value that the Internet provides to people. As we
look to the future, these abilities must remain at the heart of the Internet experience for everyone,
everywhere.

1. The ability to connect: The Internet was designed to ensure anywhere-to-anywhere

connectivity. All Internet users, regardless of where they live, should have the ability to connect
to any other point on the Internet, without technical or other impediments. This ability to connect
people is essential to the Internet’s value as a platform for innovation, creativity, and economic
opportunity.
2. The ability to speak: The Internet empowers users with the ability to speak globally and in
many new forms. Its value as a medium for self-expression is dependent on the ability of its
users to speak freely. Private, secure and, when appropriate, anonymous communications
ensure that Internet users can express themselves in a safe and secure manner. All Internet
users should have the means to communicate and collaborate without restriction.
3. The ability to innovate: The Internet provides the open connectivity fabric that underpins huge
swathes of innovation in terms of both economic activity and social interaction. Combined with
open data, widely-adopted mobile computing platforms, and widely-deployed wireless
broadband networks, the Internet is fundamental to the ability of individuals and societies to
devise new ways of working, playing, organizing, and growing.
4. The ability to share: The Internet enables sharing, learning, and collaboration. The ability to
share and openly discuss code online has given rise to the open development of key
applications of the Internet, such as the DNS and the World Wide Web. Fundamental to this
ability is the concept of fair use, and the freedom to develop and use open source software.
5. The ability to choose: The Internet empowers users with the ability to make choices from a
global marketplace of ideas, goods and services. Although the Internet does not require such
a marketplace, its existence, characterised by choice and transparency, allows users to remain
in control of their Internet experience.
6. The ability to trust: Users must be able to trust the Internet and the communications, services,
and applications it carries. As originally deployed, the Internet did not provide any intrinsic
 mechanisms to build or support trust in the network. Consequently, we have seen and will
continue to see a huge amount of development effort directed toward retrofitting trust to the
Internet at all layers.

1.5 Utopian Visions of the Internet

The paper by Fred Turner explains how there are two dominant approaches in explaining digital
liberalism that emerges from utopian predictions:

1) that the utopian ideology always rose when new technologies like telephones and airplanes
were invented, believing that they would bring “universal wealth, enhanced freedom, revitalized
politics, satisfying community, and personal fulfillment.” (p. 2) and;
2) that the “techno-utopianism’ (p.2) is self-serving to a new virtual class.

Therefore, the technological progress has created the utopianist ideology of how it can help to manage
or order structural and cultural problems of the high-tech world, but it has also created a new
transnational class that supports their position in society.

The changing image of the Hackers from being hippies to doing actual useful work in the digital world
reflects how the importance of utopianism has increased after established for the first time in the 90s,
in the form of conferences.

Additionally, after interviewing a large share of respondents at Pew Research Centre: Internet and
Technology, experts share their educated prediction on the potential impact of the internet for the next
50 years. Here are some of their collated positive ideologies of the future of the internet:

1. Entering the era of complex automation, will revolutionize the world in certain areas such that:
• In transportation, self-driving vehicles would become prevalent, making transportation
of goods and people would become more global, faster and with less energy, and would
massively reduce needed vehicles;
• In industries, automated mining and manufacturing will further reduce the need for
human workers to engage in routinary work;
• In communication, machine language translation will finally close the language barrier,
while digital tutors, teachers and personal assistants with human qualities will make
everything from learning new subjects to booking salon appointments faster and
easier.
• In business, automated secretaries, salespeople, waiters, waitress, baristas and
customer support personnel will lead to cost savings, efficiency gains and improved
customer experiences.
• In entertainment, immersive Artificial Intelligence (AI) experiences will come to
supplement traditional passive forms of media making media far more interactive;
• In energy and healthcare, improvement will be inevitable as more powerful AI tools will
take systems-level view of operations and locate opportunities to gain efficiencies in
design and operation;
• In warfare, AI-driven robotics (e.g. drones) would be a thing and;
• In research, AI will contribute immensely to basic research likely begin to create
scientific discoveries of its own.

2. On an individual basis, we will think about our digital assets as much as our physical ones .
There will be greater integration of technology with our physical selves.

3. On a societal level, AI will have affected many jobs. Not only the truck drivers and the factory
workers, but professions that have been largely impossibly irreplaceable with human
intervention – law, medicine – will have gone through a painful transformation.
 4. Ideally, we will have more transparent control over our data, and the ability to understand where
it resides and exchange it for value.

5. Some children born today are named with search engine-optimization in mind.

6. Governments will have a higher level of regulation and protection of individual data.

7. Revolutionary transformation would be seen in the healthcare sector such that:

• Significantly better medical technology related to cancer and other major diseases i.e.
areas of prosthetics, neuroscience and transhumanism;
• Significantly reduced cost of health care;
• Higher and broader availability of high-quality health care, thereby reducing the
differences in outcomes between wealthy and poor citizens.

8. A technological shift would have transpired from personal and mobile computing to ambient (in
surrounding area) computing.

1.6 Cultural Lag

The unintended consequences of newly introduced technology are an expression of a general ‘cultural
lag’ where technology leads the way, but many aspects of our culture fall behind and are slow to catch
up (if at all), such as our values, habits, ethics, legislation and government institutions but also our
understanding of society and ourselves. The term ‘culture lag’ was coined by sociologist William F.
Ogburn in 1922 and picked up again by Alvin Toffler in his book Future Shock in 1984. In consequence,
culture lag inhibits “our ability to direct technology and to control it wisely, ethically, and prudently” as
Daniel Ellsberg concludes.

The theory of cultural lag specifies that societies as a whole do not universally change in response to
introductions of new technology. Ogburn points out that there are four stages to a cultural lag:
technological, industrial, governmentmental, and social philosophical (1964, p. 134). With the
introduction of a new technology, different sectors of society accept and adopt it at different speeds.
The theory states that industry is the first sector to adjust to and acquire the technology.

As digital and ‘smart’ technology disrupts and transforms our lives at an ever-increasing speed, breadth,
and depth, the ‘culture lag’ widens and manifests along many aspects of our daily lives – and most often
without us noticing it consciously, unless we know what to look for.

1.7 Dystopian Visions of the Internet

Our privacy is in jeopardy. The more connected devices there are, the more entry points there are for
hackers and cyber criminals.

Hackers could access critical infrastructure such as power grids, hydroelectric dams, chemical plants
and more. SmartHome devices could allow manufacturers or hackers to use connected devices to
virtually or physically invade a person’s home.

85% of companies intend to offer IoT devices, yet only 10% of the aforementioned companies are
confident that they could offer devices secure from hackers.

Securing an IoT device means more than securing the actual device — companies would have to build
security into linked software applications and network connections as well.

Companies could also use legally collected data from consumers to make employment decisions. You
might agree to the use of cookies, but do you really know what these companies can see? A company
could gather information from you about driving habits while calculating your insurance rate — the same
goes for tracking fitness when it comes to health or life insurance.