How Connected are We?

After finishing both chapters of Watts book, Six Degrees, I started realizing how connected that we, as a generation, truly are. And furthermore, the point that I think Watts tries to make is that we are connected by many different things, things we don't even think about each day. We are no longer a grid network, but we are vastly connected. And again, I ask, is this a good thing? Or does this connectivity and vast network create problems that we do not even begin to see?

One of the main reasons why I ask this question here, is because of the issues that Watts raises in his opening remarks of the chapter, The Connected Age. Right in the beginning Watts states that "Americans have become increasingly reliant on a truly staggering and ever growing array of devices, facilities, and services that have turned a once hostile environment into the lifestyle equivalent of a cool breeze." He points out things like the power grid and the loss of power in major metropolitan areas like New York city in the 1970s. But what really amazed me through this whole discussion was the fact that people couldn't not handle the loss of such a 'vital' network and rioting, etc ensued. In a world where we, as Americans, are so connected, is it a good thing?

Watts continues to discuss the development of networks or their 'emergence.' For Watts, this emergence is the question of how individual behavior aggregates to collective behavior. Some of the examples he writes about are things like the human brain, the human genome, or the power surge in the UK that occurred as everyone watched the soccer game and made tea. Through this idea of emergence, or the way in which interactions can have profound consequences for the emergence of new phenomena brings about this idea of networks.

Networks, in Watts opinion, consists of a collection of objects connected to each other in 'some fashion' (p 27). But on that same note, it is hard for us to truly pin down what a network is because it is used for a vast array of different things: computers, systems, travel, friends, etc. Furthermore, Watts makes the point that in the past, networks have been viewed as objects of "pure structure whose properties are fixed in time." That doesn't necessarily hold to this day, in which networks are changing and evolving overtime, which is the whole point of a network.

But, more interestingly, and the question that I have not yet answered (and we as a class have not yet had the time to discuss) is a network's impact on society. Once we rely whole-heartedly on a connected society, what would it do to us? I mean, even in a loosely connected office of computers, a virus or worm could wipe out years of work off a computer. A few hours of no electricity in the streets of New York at night could cause mayhem and when airports or buses (transportation networks) shut down it causes pure chaos. Even scarier, a disease that starts in one continent, could span the world and disrupt it in a matter of less than a week.

So with this new emergence of network cultures, is it a good thing? I don't know if Watts has given us a definitive answer. I myself believe that we need to look at it with distrust and make sure we have safe-guards in place.