What is the Future for Digital Cultures?
Stated by David Glover in 'The Sociology of the Mass Media, 'the technology underpinning the mass media has been constantly changing throughout this century and probably never more rapidly than at present.'
Glover entails that all around the world technology is evolving; the digital world is becoming more and more popular, even communication has changed; people now find it easier to interact with one another online rather than face to face. It has been said that People have approximately three times more friends on Facebook they do in real life.
Looking at Facebook as a basic indication, it is easy to see that technology is the way of the world and so in turn the digital world will be of even greater importance to people that it is today.
Facts and statists such as ‘there are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook’ and that’s solely through their mobile devices’, supports my opinion that many people are involved in networking via digital means; it can only get more popular.
French sociologist, philosopher and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard says 'reality has fallen prey to virtual reality’, Baudrillard who has worked on post modernism and structuralism elaborates on the idea that reality in terms of hierarchy has ‘fallen’ and that virtual (online) reality has taken over. The ‘take over’ includes many aspects of our everyday life (something as simple as getting something to eat can be done via digital means).
Some believe that the thoughts and ideas behind digital evolution and expansion of digital culture was first developed in the public eye in 2004 with release of the film iRobot. With the film starring Will Smith suggesting that reality would one day be taken over by virtual life.
In iRobot (film), robots are developed and used a ‘servants’ to human needs, doing the jobs that we wouldn’t want to and obeying the command of humans. This however goes wrong and the robots take over- a clear example of cyberspace becoming more important than real life.
People can get so drawn into cyberspace that they forget their surroundings, it’s almost as though we ourselves are turning into robots or cyber-bots when we sit down in front of a computer screen.
It is even logical to say that cyber space in some sense is coming into our reality... Imagine if the world became so overwhelmed by technology that it story line of 'irobot' where machines do the things we don't want to, became reality.
Again, from Glover's 'The Sociology of the Mass Media',1984 ; 'Whatever the future holds we can expect that it will not only raise new problems but also, as the story of the mass media to date has shown, it will re-kindle old criticisms from the past.' Although written in 1984 and reproduced only in 1990 its context is still correct. Glover's statement is one that does not differ over time.
Technology is forever evolving. Its development over the years has been massive, especially in the case of technological convergence.
There are so many, now affordable forms of technology that have so many functions that generally, in some respects, makes life easier. In the future this will develop further, leading me to the belief that technology will never stop growing and expanding. This can be seen as a positive or a negative thing.
One negative thing, relating back to the Glover’s statement, new technology is always accompanied by new problems, one of these problems revolves around young people, although ‘global media, through encouraging brand identity, plays an important role in providing young people with a common language among their peers’ (Ralph, 1999: 105)* children will become materialistic, even more so than they are now.
People will live there life’s based on the belief that if they have the latest gadget their lifestyle will dramatically improve and although in some respects it will, overall it may not be such a good thing. People may begin to value possessions rather than people as well as becoming lazy which could possibly in worst case scenario lead to obesity; the chain of links is never ending.
*(Ralph, 1999: 105): Youth and the Global Media. Luton: University of Luton, 1999.
