This blog post examines the changes and limitations smartphones and wearable devices have brought to humanity, and delves deeply into how humans might evolve in the future.
The 1990s saw the widespread adoption of computers and the rapid advancement of internet technology. This period marked a new phase for society, dramatically improving access to information and knowledge. Furthermore, the development of the internet had a profound impact far beyond simple information sharing, affecting numerous fields worldwide, including economics, culture, education, and politics. Then, in the 2010s, a new tool emerged: the smartphone. Smartphones offered unparalleled portability and accessibility compared to traditional computers, enabling people to live connected to networks anytime, anywhere. Few would dispute that the advent of internet technology and smartphones revolutionized human life.
Alongside this, the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data technology also brought significant changes to daily human routines. Smartphones have evolved beyond mere tools for phone calls and messaging. Through features like AI assistants, they analyze and predict users’ lifestyle patterns, providing personalized services. While these technologies have made human life more convenient and efficient, they have simultaneously created new dependencies. Humans now spend considerable time in daily life connected to networks via computers and smartphones, forming communities large and small. Consequently, the time humans spend existing as isolated individuals in daily life has become extremely limited.
These networked humans, as long as they remain connected, constantly receive information as members of society while simultaneously becoming information sources themselves, continuously uploading data onto the network. Based on these actions, they possess a cognitive speed that rivals the speed of global information propagation, transcending physical distance. In other words, modern humans, through computers and smartphones, have become a kind of artificially evolved human with a cognitive scope and speed entirely different from that of previous humans.
However, this artificial human evolution is not perfect, and its limitations are clear. Artificially evolved, networked humans could transcend the physical distance of information through computers and smartphones. Yet they have failed to overcome the physical distance between humans and computers/smartphones. This fundamental limitation stems from the necessity of a physical connection between humans and machines. Without a computer or smartphone within arm’s reach, networked humans are indistinguishable from their predecessors. Without these devices, humans are isolated individuals—incomplete beings with severely limited cognitive scope and speed.
Furthermore, such technological advancements have altered the ways people interact. Online interactions increasingly replace offline meetings, and people spend significant time expressing themselves and communicating with others through SNS or messengers. However, this shift can weaken emotional connections and contribute to feelings of isolation. As networked humans who have enjoyed a sense of belonging to society, vast cognitive scope, and rapid cognitive speed, we experience intense loneliness, loss, and helplessness when disconnected from the network.
The ultimate way to overcome this fear of network disconnection is to completely eliminate the fundamental cause of disconnection: the physical distance between humans and computers or smartphones. What if, like characters in sci-fi films such as Ghost in the Shell or The Matrix, computers were implanted within our physical bodies? Just as we currently possess multiple organs within our bodies as biological beings, what if humans could freely connect to networks while possessing a computer as an artificial organ within their bodies? Such an existence could truly be called a new dimension of life, fully networked and artificially evolved.
However, implanting computers into the human body remains in the research and exploration phase, as the miniaturization of computers and related technologies like Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) have not yet sufficiently advanced. Significant time will be required before such technologies become commercially viable, and ethical and social issues must be resolved during this process. Therefore, the next best solution is wearable devices like the iWatch, which minimize the physical distance between humans and computers by being worn directly on our bodies.
Existing devices existed as separate entities from the human body, sitting on desks, inside bags, or tucked away in pockets. In contrast, wearable devices connect to the network while directly attached to the human body, taking the form of wristwatches, glasses, or clothing. While not reaching the level of computers implanted directly into the human body, wearable devices attached to our bodies connect us to the network more quickly and naturally than traditional computers or smartphones. And above all, by being directly attached to our bodies, they constantly remind us that we can connect to the network at any time. This alleviates the fear of network disconnection felt by artificially evolved humans. That is why we are paying attention to new wearable devices, and why global giants are investing massive budgets into their development.
Thus, the emergence of the concept of wearable devices carries significance beyond merely introducing new smart devices. In other words, the advent of wearable devices starkly reveals the existence of networked humans—a phenomenon born from over two decades of artificial evolution—and the fear of disconnection from the network inherent to that existence. Furthermore, the emergence of wearable devices points toward the ultimate direction of artificial evolution that humanity will pursue. It also indicates a progression toward embedding computers directly into the human body, completely eliminating the physical distance between humans and computers.
In essence, wearable devices serve as a milestone in artificial evolution, revealing both the current state and the future path of the artificial evolution humanity has pursued over the past two decades. This holds significance beyond mere technological advancement; it will be a crucial turning point capable of fundamentally altering the way humans exist and live. Moving forward, we must embrace the possibility that we will evolve beyond wearable devices, where the boundary between humans and machines becomes increasingly blurred, ultimately leading to a new form of existence that is completely fused.
