The world is changing at a rapid rate, with new and potentially revolutionary technologies being invented seemingly every day. While the impact of some technologies is easy to predict based on the hype that surrounds them, there are certain inventions that have changed the world despite being initially rejected by the public. In this article, we take a closer look at three such inventions, starting with one that most people in the developed world use on a daily basis.
Personal Computers
It may seem unbelievable to us now, but there was a time when people feared computers similarly to how some people today fear machine learning and artificial intelligence. In 1980, the term cyberphobia was introduced to describe an irrational fear of or aversion to computers experienced by computerphobes. In fact, there are entire books written about cyberphobia, including “Computer Phobia: How to Slay the Dragon of Computer Fear” by Sanford B Weinberg.
As time went on and computers became an integral part of our daily lives, cyberphobia became a much less talked about issue, but it never entirely disappeared, remaining a subject of scientific inquiry to this day. For example, a 2016 paper published in the International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature examined cyberphobia among adult university students, and discovered that the respondents had a moderate level of computer anxiety, with female students experiencing higher levels of cyberphobia compared to their male counterparts.
Ethernet
Ethernet is a networking protocol commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN), and wide area networks (WAN). It was first proposed by Harvard student Robert Melancton Metcalfe in his doctoral dissertation. Harvard initially rejected the dissertation for not being analytical enough and accepted it only when Metcalfe later added more equations to it.
Soon after, in 1983, Ethernet was standardized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as IEEE 802.3. Since then, the original Ethernet standard has been revised numerous times, with the most recent revision being 802.3bz.
What is, above all, remarkable about Ethernet is the fact that this world-changing networking technology has retained a good degree of backward compatibility for 35 years, which is not only a testament to the quality of the original design, but also the ability of the working group tasked with developing it to meet our current and future needs.
E-learning
Gordon Miller, Founder and Director of the Multimedia Lab at Virginia Tech, said that e-learning is a failed experiment, and he is by far not the only person with this opinion. Even though e-learning holds the potential to change the way people of all ages learn, its initial implementation left a lot to be desired, causing educators and scientists alike to oppose it vocally.
We are just entering a new era of e-learning, where the importance and benefits of traditional teaching methods are recognized and used alongside in conjunction with e-learning. Websites such as Coursera, Wikipedia, Quora, and many others have become highly trafficked sources of knowledge that allow their users to digest information at their own pace, and business readily invest in e-learning platforms that help them unleash the full potential of their employees.
