What is the web doing to our bodies?

An essay published by The Barbican and the British Council

In the last few decades, the revolution in information technology has rewired our lives – the ways we shop, communicate, and gather and consume information. But it is also there in our flesh and bones. The web is changing our bodies.

The internet is modifying the way we move, the kinds of illnesses that we have to manage on both individual and global scales, and even our appearance. The rise of the web is synonymous with a new kind of body that is noticeably different to the ones which preceded it.

Work is reflected in the human body

All environments invite work of different kinds, and when those environments change, so do the movements we make.

The traces of these changes are there in both modern and ancient humans. They are written so deep that we can see them at a distance of millions of years.