Being Digital
What does it mean to be digital?
Digitalization. Positive or Negative? A debate that continues today. It was within the late 1950s that a shift began to occur in the way we view the world today. At first, these changes were mostly found within the academic and business communities. Mainframe computers allowed complex problems to be solved more quickly and for large sets of data to be more easily compared. In was with the start of miniaturization that computing began to enter the average person’s daily life and true digitalization could begin. This was most well known as the Digital Revolution.
There have been many advancements in today’s technology, some that have pushed the boundaries further than we could ever think possible. However, the question still stands. Are these changes good or bad? What are the repercussions of them? What are the advantages of them? In an earlier entry, Foundational and Transitional Thinking, the story of self driving cars was brought up. These advancements, this ability for a car to almost predict the future based on variables, is something that was a fantasy 50 or so years ago. It brings up the question where our future is taking us and how technology as a whole is going to progress this.
Many have discussed the negatives of the digital era, especially concerning what would happen if a cataclysmic event occurred. When concerning the internet specifically, CNN discusses things from cyberwarfare to something as basic as ‘cable cutting’. But are things like this really that easily done? If the internet can be shut down, wouldn’t every aspect of our digital lives go down with it? (There are even political notions that put our internet at risk today!) Imagine if we were finally able to digitize every book — every event in our history. The next day? Gone.
However, what about the positives of our technological advancement? Ignoring the repercussions, at least for now, what can come from this idea of digitalization?
Digital companies like Uber are able to disrupt deeply entrenched industries and change the way we look at basic services like taxis.
“Riders also get more choices and they get to control how they contact their potential drivers.”
This very idea is a major game changer and shows that the digital revolution can even affect areas that seem outside its normal scope. It’s success has been so great that most new companies strive to be the Uber of any given industry.
Another area where technology has had many positive implication is television. As little as a few years ago, watching television programing required signing up with cable or satellite providers. This usually cost quite a bit and left you with a lot of stations you weren’t necessarily interested in watching. With the digitalization of much of this programing (cord-cutting), however, a person can easily sign up for specific packages through online services that allow them to watch what they want when they want.
The digital revolution has also affected the way we find and read books. Gone are the days of scouring the library for a hard to find volume. Now most books are available from numerous sources (Kindle, Nook, Google Books) in a variety of digital formats. This has made it much easier to new authors to make their way into the marketplace. At the same time, it has made many hard to books (especially rare old books) available at the touch of a button.
Of course, there are many other ways in which our world is growing more digital. The list goes on, with more and more advancements being made everyday. But with these advancements we must also remember that becoming digital is only the first step in our own advancement. Imagine the possibilities of the future and the endless amount of knowledge already available at our fingertips. One day we may even see holodecks of Star Trek become real.
Get Joanna Shea Powell’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
{2/2/2017}
- Joanna Shea Powell
___________________________________________________________________
A Thought Into Negroponte
“Like air and drinking water, being digital will be noticed only by its absence, not its presence.”
A fascinating quote from Negroponte himself — one that must be discussed. These days it’s hard to imagine a world without our digital devices. After all, when we need to know something, what do we reach for first? The answer may have once been a book or encyclopedia, but these days it is certainly a phone to search the internet. Our own personal digital devices are such a part of our lives that most people’s first instinct upon experiencing an event is to take a selfie or ‘tweet’ about it — thus sharing it with as many people as possible.
Nicholas Negroponte had many revolutionary ideas that subsequently came into being. As a founder of the MIT Media Lab, he has been on the cutting edge of the convergence of technology and human existence for some time. Since leaving the lab, Negroponte has continued his work with the One Laptop Per Child organization, which strives to create an inexpensive computer to provide to children in impoverished areas of the world.
Negroponte’s book Being Digital, discusses many of his ideas about where the world is heading with the digital revolution. He describes how many people early on had the wrong idea about what could be done with new computer technology. Instead of just trying the improve the capabilities of existing technology and media, he explores many outside the box notions of how computers could change our lives. His example of High Definition television defines this very thought. For Negroponte, High definition television is a just more of the same. Instead he wants to explore all the different ways technology can affect the mundane programing of television.
However, perhaps a better way of exploring Negroponte’s ideas is not to delve so specific as TV programming. To quote from his book, Being Digital, he states,
“The medium is not the message in a digital world.” (71)
Playing with McLuhan’s idea of the medium being the message, Negroponte points out that when dealing with bits rather than atoms, the medium becomes largely meaningless. Instead of being held in a book, CD, or any other physical container, information is simply data in a digital stream. What matters then is how that data is viewed not how it is carried. As Negroponte says, the same data stream can lead to vastly different results based on how it is viewed.
In the end, Negroponte’s book is filled with his far reaching vision of the future. These visions are not science fiction either, many have come to be. In the mid 90s, when the book was written, the idea of a digital butler (141) would have still called up visions of The Jetsons. In today’s world, they are just another fact of life, with digital assistants like Siri that live in our devices and are used daily.
Negroponte’s take on becoming digital has informed many within the New Media landscape and those throughout the world. It is through his visions that we have shaped our digital lives. He has predicted many things that have come to pass, from Netflix to e-books and even touch screens. Just as we continue to develop these technologies, we will surely continue to evolve in our new digital lives.
{2/4/2017}
-Joanna Shea Powell
