In my last post I talked about Culture – but what is Digital Culture?
The way we talked about it in class, it describes the relationship between humans and technology. The Internet and the ever-evolving technology shape how we humans go about our daily lives, and how we interact with others. Since the birth of the internet, people from around the world have been able to connect with one another, share information, create bonds with people from behind a screen and create their own communities.
The way we think, behave and communicate today is so different from even 20 years ago. And it’s crazy if you think about how much technology has advanced in such a short space of time. We really are living in the Cyberspace era. Sherry Turkle describes Cyberspace as a “metaphor for an imaginary space that exists in, on and between ‘computational devices’”. Turkle explores how everyone manages their “second self” – the self in which we are perceived online vs to how we are in real life. Which wasn’t a thing 30 years ago, but with everyone constantly logged into Cyberspace in some way shape or form, it is a task we do unconsciously.
Everyone and everything are connected thanks to the technologies that we use. And it goes beyond simply being connected via phone or email; it’s much more than that. Video games, tv shows, movies, they all connect us as humans via a shared experience – just look at how many people turn up for movie premiers. I remember going to the opening night of Avengers Endgame in one of the county cinemas and thinking “Wow. Look at this horde of nerds” and it was amazing. Cyberspace has really lent itself to the entertainment industry, which in turn allows itself to live in our imaginations. Simply look at movies much as the Matrix or Ready Player One. We dream of what we can accomplish within this Cyberspace. Many Sci-fi movies and shows imagine what we could accomplish with Cyberspace, and it drives us to want to make them a reality. For example, people are still waiting on their hover boards from “Back to the Future”, and I certainly want to see a completed Augmented Reality via a Full Dive, like in Sword Art Online. Of course, this is all speaking of the future, but how is the Digital Culture today?
I mean, the biggest thing is the internet, and then Wifi, the ability to connect to the world wide web and any given moment. It has allowed us to form our own online communities and from that digital cultures that can translate into everyday human life. Just look at how some people talk now. LOL - Laugh out loud. TTYL – Talk to you later. And so on. Digital Culture has integrated itself into everyday human life. The amount of people I know who say smart watches are a necessity and are shocked when I express my desire to not have one. Everyone has a phone now. If you don’t you are severely out of the loop. Technology truly has cemented itself into human culture. I guarantee you if we were to suddenly lose all power worldwide, we would all be freaking out and shutting down. Heck most of us get anxiety when the WiFi signal drops.
Now I think it goes without saying there are concerns with us humans getting more and more heavily, and I say this word cautiously, addicted to the internet. Now of course this doesn’t apply to every single human on the planet but you have to admit that even if yourself isn’t much of an active internet user, you must realise how different and harder your life would be without it. I don’t consider myself an internet fanatic – I very much enjoy my hobbies that take me away from a screen, but it would be foolish and ignorant of me to not acknowledge how much I rely on the internet for my day-to-day life. Researching for college assignments, my graphic design work. Heck I get to attend my classes via the internet now. Even outside the realm of necessities here, I have never been on apps like Tik Tok more than I have now. I find them entertaining in this boring hellscape we currently find ourselves in and they provide the smallest bits of enjoyment for me in quick snippets. On a side note, can you imagine how much harder Lockdown would have been if not for the internet? We have now gotten so used to the Internet as a means of communication and a source of information. If that all suddenly went away, I don’t think many of us would handle it well. I think it goes without saying moderation is the word of the day. Enjoy your Cyberspace but remember to go do something else that isn’t streaming 1’s and 0’s into your eye sockets.
I think a common misconception is that we as a civilisation have become more “anti-social” with the evolution of technology. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been told to “get off my silly game and meet up with my friends” to which my response is always to take my headset off and tell my mother to say hi to my friends on the other end. People assume that because we are staring at our digital devices that we aren’t participating in the real world. When in fact the opposite is true. We have never been more connected and therefore more social as a civilisation. Aside from the standard chatting with your in-person friends via messenger, it allows you to meet people you otherwise wouldn’t meet in real life. I have made friends with people from America and Australia via Tik Tok. I am in many discord groups with people I have yet to meet in real life and yet we chat weekly. It is due to my online communication that I made the most amazing friends, it is the reason we can stay in touch despite the distance and I can’t wait for the day we can meet up in person again. But these friendships would never had happened had we not had online communication. The Digital Era lends it’s to being social. Humans are social beings. It is why we are drawn to social platforms. It allows us to share and discuss. Global Movements have been started on Twitter; Black Lives Matter being a perfect example. If we did not live in a Digital Era, that movement wouldn’t have gotten any traction. Digital Culture is not just a group of communities online, it is a host that allows us to share our passions and thoughts to the world. A place where everyone can find a sense of belonging.
Turkle, S. (1999). Cyberspace and Identity. Contemporary Sociology, 28(6), 643-648. from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2655534
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