Under Our Skins

It’s two years ago, and I’m at a bar in Wellington. A friend shows me on a map on her iPhone that that is indeed where we are. From within the app we could post this information on our respective Facebook walls, or on Twitter, FourSquare and so forth. This is the Internet now, I realize: no longer just information that travels on the TCP/IP protocol, but also the GPS-enabled handsets that track our locations in real time and enable us to upload photos of ourselves at bars in Wellington. And the social desire to share that information: that too is now part of the Internet. We want these things to be known about ourselves. We want to be followed. (...)

It starts with the simple questions: Can I afford not to own a cell phone? Would I still be employable if I didn’t own one? Would I still know what is happening and get invited to parties? The next year, it’s owning a smart phone. Or being on Facebook. Or getting an iPad for the children. None of this is about being aspirational. It’s about keeping up, an imperative sharpened by the economic crisis. So we cut expenses, but not when it comes to technology. Perhaps we eat out less, or travel less. But the cell phone — which
by now has become a smartphone — stays. And the thing about smartphones is that in order to be fully functional they need to know where they are — that is to say, where we are. This knowledge defines them. It is what makes them smart.

by Giovanni Tiso, The New Inquiry |  Read more: