Technology is changing us

Next time you switch on your computer, tablet or smartphone be aware that you are being monitored.
 
The information gathered is fed into your personal algorithm to help deliver adverts to you.
So far all this is benign and driven by commerce.
 
Mary Aiken a pioneering cyber psychologist painted a scary picture today at Hay Festival of what the Internet is really like and how little most people understand it.
 
She asked the audience to put their hands up if they knew about the Dark Web. Out of hundreds only a few dozen at most raised their hands.
 
Yet the Dark Web represents 96 per cent of the Internet where all the nasty stuff and cybercriminals hang out.
There you can get everything from a gun to an assassin – and its totally unregulated.
 
Children know how to access it yet parents have no idea what they are doing there.
 
She says it’s like the Wild West and its time controls were introduced.
 
 
  She is not against technology and is fully aware of the benefits.
 
But it needs to be regulated– for everyone’s sake.
 
 

The Cyber Effect by Mary Aiken makes fascinating reading.