It’s incredible how much access we have right in the palm of our hands today. The options are almost endless. However, along with the pros of this, there are also cons. Our computers and smartphones haven’t only brought us endless avenues of being constantly in touch with our friends and families, and having shopping, music, games, and much more right in the palm of hour hands. Unfortunately, this type of access can also contribute to increased anxiety and mental stress.
I hear many people talk about how much “the world has changed” over the past ten years, or so. But I’ll raise a question, just for consideration: Has the world really changed, or has our awareness, perspective, and access to the world changed?
Before the internet virtually exploded onto the planet, like a present day Big Bang, people mainly had three avenues through which to learn about events in the world: daily newspapers, radio, and news on tv. The word “daily” needs to be emphasized here. If you read something in the newspaper one morning and wanted to know more about the story, you either watched the news that night to see if there would be more information, listened to the radio, or you waited for the newspaper to arrive the next morning. That was basically how it worked.
People would get their dose of daily news, and then they’d go about their day. Maybe they discussed what they heard on the radio or read in the newspaper with co-workers, maybe they thought about something in the news that resonated with their lives, but there was much less attention to the outside world because there was much less information available. People still had their own life issues to deal with — it wasn’t a care-free time, by any means — but there was generally much less to be distracted by in one’s day before the internet.
With the existence of the internet, we have the world’s biggest double-edged sword: having everything in the palm of our hands. Sure, we do have significantly positive access at our fingertips. But, the problem is how much more information exists a whole, and it’s constantly being added to throughout each day. Now, it’s not just the stories from the morning paper or evening news, there’s seemingly an endless amount of reporting space.
The media is constantly searching for information, no matter how meaningless or irrelevant the stories may be. How often have you heard a story and wondered, “Why is this news?” Sure, this went on before the internet as well, but it was on a much smaller scale since the space for reporting was so limited. Now, if there isn’t an updated or new story every few minutes, journalists are almost behind the game.
As a result, we are being constantly inundated with information that is often magnified simply for the purposes of getting people to read or follow. The problem is, our brains only have the capacity to take in so much. Even if we check our phones all day long for news updates, most likely we’re only seeing a small percentage of the information that exists now. So, if we’re not constantly keeping up, we are also behind. And it’s not just the news stories — it’s keeping up with the lives of our friends and acquaintances through the various social media, including almost limitless texting capacity (which keeps conversations ongoing), and all other intrigues of the internet.
This kind of environment creates an information overload. What people consider to be ‘multitasking’ is actually not possible. The human brain can’t focus on more than one thing at a time. When we multitask, we actually are focusing on single tasks for bits and pieces of time. This can end up creating symptoms similar to that of ADHD, where it can become very difficult to focus on any one activity for a length of time. Attention span is essentially diminished because there is an overwhelming amount of information constantly surrounding us. We’re like children in a huge toy store — but imagine being in that toy store while trying to work, or be with family, or study, or have interpersonal relationships at the same time. This is essentially what we do in our daily lives with the internet.
While UAVs have joined spy satellites as an indispensable part of America's military operations—especially in delivering timely, accurate intel to troops on the ground—they are not the end-all-be-all perfect solution, even in coordination. That's why DARPA plans to supplement these unmanned intelligence gathering platforms with jet-deployed constellations of micro-satellites. Soon, every grunt will have access to a real-time battlefield mini-map just in like video games.
Spy satellites and UAVs alike suffer from the same problem—availability. Sure some UAVs in the US arsenal can remain airborne for the better part of two days while providing focused area coverage but they eventually have to refuel which leads to intel coverage gaps. Orbiting satellites don't need to refuel but their operational windows—and therefore the wide area imaging they are able to provide—are limited by their overflight schedule (the amount of time they're actually overhead). When combined with information flow restrictions through the chain of command, actually delivering fresh, tactical intel can be a challenge. In response, DARPA has set about creating a hybridized, tertiary level of intelligence gathering that leverages the relative strengths of both technologies and delivers that information directly to the troops that need it most urgently.
After that's done, you will arrive at your file manager dashboard where you can upload and download files, share public links to files, and share files with other Mega users. At the far right is a drop-down menu aptly titled "Menu" that contains links to Mega's blog, pricing for Pro accounts, help, terms of service, and other informational links. On the left side is the Cloud Drive showing all your uploaded files, and navigation links to the trash bin, your inbox, and contacts.
To add a contact, just click on the contacts section and click "Add contact" at the top of the page. Once the person signs up for Mega they will be automatically added to your contacts list. One of the handier features in Mega is that you can share files with other Mega users by dragging and dropping a file to their name in your contacts section. Mega plans to add Instant Messaging to the service so you will be able to do more than just send and receive files with your contacts.
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