Chapter 7: Dis-Education and Inverted Reality

Among the modern devices, the computer since it appeared for the first time has changed more than any others its size, shape, and uses. By now it is increasingly hidden inside smart devices that no longer have the original name, but possess all the functionality of a computer. Smartphones, tablets, iPods, sensors, smart traffic lights, PlayStations, webcams, iWatches, Google glass, are all computers camouflaged as refined objects that populate our lives. Today, it is estimated that about 5 billion computers are “hidden” in the guise of these devices in the world, in 2020 they should become over 20 billion. Among the many forms that the computer can take, smartphones are the most widespread. They are objects that live with us everyday and of which many users only use their functions in a small part. Byung-Chul Han in his essay In the Swarm [1] signals the limitations of these digital devices: