The Internet, as a malleable collection of bits, responds to and evolves with the cumulative needs of the connected human race. It rewards, condemns or ignores elements of itself in line with our primitive human desires; growing in places and dying in others. So we, as human beings with our natural, non-digital desires, shape the Internet.
Simultaneously, the Internet changes how we (cumulatively at least) behave. It creates and destroys jobs, it makes and breaks marriages, and it redefines where, how and with who we live and share our lives. And at the deepest level it rewires the chemical makeup of our brains by changing the way we think, speak and remember. While it divides two generations, it keeps them in touch.
We and the Internet are now dependent on one other; we are interwoven with bits. As we shape it, it shapes us.
Just as we are interwoven with books, advertising, commerce, tools, religion, industry, government, agriculture, transport and much much more.
This is not something to be afraid of, but it’s something worth trying to understand.