I was reading Dilbert on Sunday and I realized we’ve come full circle.

      Originally, computers existed for work, and only work. Even the ‘games’ were more about experimenting and learning then anything else. The idea of something like ‘social networking’ was beyond comprehension.

      You would run the program that would help you do the task at hand, and then shut it down when done. Repeat as needed. The computer existed to serve the user.

      Over time, with the growth of the internet, more and more programs were ‘free’. Which is to say, ‘paid for in other ways’, often through advertising. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it could distract and lower the value gained by using the program in the first place.

      Now we are at the point where the operating system advertises to us, the websites advertise to us, the products we use advertise to us. Since no one wants to watch advertisements, an endless stream of mindless drivel is used to keep us there. Constantly distracting us and preventing the very benefit computers were created to provide. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to claim computers no longer serve us, now they exist to distract and manipulate us for the puppeteer’s gain.

      Hence, having come full circle. I wonder how next we will focus on getting work done.

Above is the comic that inspired these thoughts. Not mine, comic belongs to Scott Adams (or whoever ‘owns’ Dilbert).