Some social implications of ubiquitous wireless networks

Abstract

Wireless computer networks and the devices to communicate with them are about to become ubiquitous. A profusion of devices is likely to emerge quickly in specialized form factors, from handhelds to cheap, disposable sensors. Groups of people using these tools will gain new forms of social power, ways to organize and coordinate their interactions and exchanges just in time and just in place. Using these tools, people will be able to collectively construct a range of resources that were too difficult or expensive, or simply impossible to provide before. Simultaneously, these tools will gather a constellation of intimate data about each of us. Wireless devices will penetrate every nook and cranny of the social world, bringing the efficiency of information technology to the production of panoptic power. In the following, two sociological concepts, Power/Knowledge and social dilemmas, are used as a guide to the kinds of social institutions and relationships that are likely to emerge from the use of these tools.

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