The cited article discusses the heightened
availability of free public Wi-Fi networks in Britain since the Summer
Olympics. In the early months of 2012, a
number of providers offered complimentary wireless service to populated areas
in preparation for the Games.
Apparently, free Wi-Fi benefits far more people than the expected frugal
or low-tech consumers. Indeed, this no-cost
internet access assists mobile providers who, in an unending yet perpetually
ineffective effort to satisfy customers, are frantically combatting overcrowded
mobile networks.
One more worthwhile tidbit from
the article: “The number of Wi-Fi hot
spots worldwide will reach 5.8 million by the end of 2015, up from 800,000 in
2012.”
What to think? I concede that this strategy is a reasonable
one. Mobile providers extend their
wireless reach by offering more hot spots and, in so doing, alleviate the
bustling mobile traffic that plagues industrious consumers and the helpless
telephone support teams who must calm said industrious consumers.
However, I must ask…is no one
concerned about the escalating quantity of unseen data waves, cell phone signals,
and incorporeal tech traffic that assail our unprotected bodies each day? Though 5.8 million hot spots will hardly be
considered an inconvenience to web-dependent individuals, will they threaten
our physical wellbeing? The
accessibility of the internet is already robbing us of our presence and
immediacy. As we cross the street, we
glance at our phones and not at the green mosaics of the summer. As we recline at home, we watch the
television, and not the expressions of our animated friends and children.
So when I wonder if 5.8 million
hot spots will harm us in some further way, I sigh into my overbright,
pulseless computer screen and acknowledge, “Yep, they will.”
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