An interview was conducted with a friend of mine on discussing how has a technology changed over her lifetime. When I asked her if she thinks technology is important in our lives and why, she thought technology is a really important factor of improving the productivity levels of the labour market as well as to the nation’s economy and the social development. In addition, technology plays a significant role as a pathway to explore the unknown, and also to ease communication between each individual, such as social apps.

The interviewee thought the intervention of Wi-Fi technology had a huge impact on her life and this contains both positive and negative impacts on her. She said, “Wi-Fi provides more convenience, for example on monetary aspects which saved me a lot of data expenses. Also, the coverage of Wi-Fi in the past two years has gradually expanded, from the entire campus, shopping malls, restaurants, transportations to even on aircraft. What fascinates me the most is that people can use Wi-Fi on planes, it is a big leap I think, to me at least. There are airlines nowadays provide a relatively convenient Wi-Fi service, which could be providing convenience for students who may have assignments, people who do business and even ordinary passengers are able to do more entertainment activities on the plane to be more relaxed and comfortable during a long trip.”

There is no denying that the use of Wi-Fi occupies a large part of life at present. The interviewee personally felt that most of the people including herself are relatively dependent on Wi-Fi. She responded that “entertainment activities in our daily life, such as magazines, news reports, and even many books and material resources are all available online and there is no need to purchase printed version anymore. Even iMessage, WhatsApp, Line, WeChat and other social software have gradually replaced the previous messages and phone calls through phone numbers.” The successful development of wireless networks is indispensable to the success of software. Although she thought there are side effects on people both bodily and mentally, which is also been proved in the sixth version of a future of the internet survey, “possible negatives than possible positives”. (ABC 2014)

We further discussed that how Wi-Fi technology will be in 2040. The interviewee presumed that in the future the Wi-Fi service coverage will be more extensive, and it will be improved and optimized at the network speed. For instance, buses, taxis, trains will provide free wireless networks. The Wi-Fi service has only implemented in some aircraft in certain countries at the moment and it is not reached full coverage yet. Indeed, the aircraft have signal interferences which affect the use and experience of Wi-Fi. However, she thought these problems will get corresponding improvements in the future as technology has been developing extremely fast.

 

Reference:

Lecture slide 7 – Interviewing

ABC 2014, Surveying the future of the internet, podcast, viewed 20 September, <https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/surveying-the-future-of-the-internet/5359664&gt;.

Lorenz S. Marasigan 2017, Government to invest P7.7 billion for free Wi-Fi service in next 5 year, BusinessMirror, viewed 20 September,<https://businessmirror.com.ph/government-to-invest-p7-7-billion-for-free-wi-fi-service-in-next-5-years/&gt;.