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A well-respected scientist believes that the Internet is no passing fad and could remain part of our lives for the foreseeable future.
“Email, social media, YouTube, Amazon. I don’t think people have realised quite how much the Internet has become embedded in our lives,” said Simon Williams, Professor of Computing and That at Oxford University.
“You hear people say that it’s just a bit of a gimmick and next year we’ll all be back to sending telegrams and buying bongo magazines, but I’m not sure that’s the case. I genuinely think people enjoy the convenience of having this global repository of information available on their computers.
Dr Williams cautioned the government against trying to remove the Internet.
“I would imagine they’d get considerable pushback were they to try and take away the Internet.
“I would leave it at least another couple of years and see. But really, I think we need to accept that the Internet is here to stay, and I think the government would do well to accept that and cancel any plans they have to remove it.”
Dr Williams also believes that smartphones aren’t likely to fade out of fashion any time soon.
“Smartphones? I would imagine that we’ll still see people using them this time next year. Definitely.”
