Danail Ivanov Ph.D.

    Information technology has moved its way out from a humble corner of human life to outright dominance over business, society, and pretty much every waking moment of our personal lives. These days, even the smallest act is shaped by, mediated through, or hopelessly entangled with some piece of technology. Want to boil an egg? There's an app for that, three competing smart devices, and at least one subscription you forgot to cancel. tis means we are now living in interesting times, and yes, I'm aware that's technically a curse.

For 21 years, I've worked as a researcher in MIS and Business Analytics, which is a respectable way of saying I've spent two decades trying to understand what on earth all this technology is actually doing to us. It's been a remarkable front-row seat. I've watched information technology reshape how we live, how we do business, and how we organize as a society—occasionally for the better, occasionally in ways that make you wonder who approved this.

To be fair, most of these changes have been genuinely good: convenience with machines doing the work for us, more connection making everyone and everything accessible, and more cat videos than any previous generation could have dreamed of. The convenience, connectivity and enjoyment through technology, are a gift that solve one problem while unintentionally inventing two new ones. Those challenges are still out there, patiently waiting to test our ingenuity, our adaptability, and our ability to remember yet another password, unless like a smart person we use '12345'.