I think there are many things that Jesse Schell discussed/predicted that are already happening now. He mentioned how there would be sensors everywhere and we would be constantly watched and recorded. There are already cameras everywhere that record what we do all the time, they record us when we don’t notice and least expect it. There are also lots of sensors everywhere; there are sensors in our phones, in our watches, that record how many steps we take and how many miles we walk.
His prediction that advertisements would flood our daily lives is also not that far off from today’s reality. When you go on certain websites, say Facebook, you’ll see ads related to other websites you’ve visited before. When you want to watch a video on YouTube, you have to watch advertisements before and there are ads all over the page. People who create videos on YouTube get paid for sponsoring products and acting as ads. We can’t leave the house without being surrounded by ads. There are people who literally only watch the Super Bowl for the ads! We’re already starting to see more of these point systems arising everywhere, I mean, every store has some type of points system where the more you buy, the more points you get and the more you save on your next purchase.
Although some of his thoughts seemed a little extreme and unrealistic, like the ubiquity of the point systems (especially the example of the tattoo and the ads on the tattoo) I can’t say that something like that will never happen because we never know where technology might take us. A few years ago, people wouldn’t have ever dreamed of the things we can do now with technology, and how technology would impact our lives, but here we are tweeting random thoughts, liking people’s statuses and worrying about how many followers we have. His idea that everything would be connected to the internet, including soda cans or cereal boxes, seems implausible, but I bet if someone actually created those products people would buy it because it sounds and looks cool, and seeing how accessible technology is now, it would be rather inexpensive to create products with simple connections like those he mentioned.
If Jesse Schell thinks all of this can someday happen, there surely must be someone else who has thought of something similar, and maybe one day, our lives will be run by a points system and by sensors. If it comes to that, hopefully he’s right in saying that knowing how everything we do will be recorded, that we will strive to be better people.