Sorry for my tardiness...for better or for worse...

There has been lots of talk about the digital world around us. For better or for worse, our lives are being checkered with digital gizmos that either make things easier or make things more accessible than before. Looking at the progression of human life, it has gone from walking to running to riding on a horse to riding in a car to flying in a plane. It’s intuitively obvious that our lives are quickly approaching the speed of light. If I want to learn everything there is to know about the Great Wall of China, I don’t need to take a boat, I don’t need to fly in a plane, hell I don’t even need a supersonic jet. All I really need is a computer, a mouse, a keyboard, a monitor, but most importantly, a connection. It’s this idea of connection that drives Benkler’s call for commons-based peer production. Similarly, Jenkins’s talk of “convergence culture” deals with widespread access and connection to forms of media working towards the ultimate goal, synergy.

Sure, people have been throwing out lots of terms to describe where society is and most likely where it’s headed. But though this class looks at those issues, it is under the auspice of the idea that we are “becoming digital”. What does that mean, to become digital? Frankly, I think it’s hard to say because we as a society haven’t truly attained this idea. My idea of becoming digital is being able to turn on my computer, put on some headset, goggles and gloves, and walk the Champs-Elysees stopping to check out a store or talk to a fellow virtual tourist. I buy my French baret and then transfer myself to Florence, Italy right in the Boar’s Head Market. There I can shop some of the finest leather items in the world or go to a café to check the score of the World Cup game. Take World of Warcraft, mix it with some technology, and apply it to the real world. Instead of a druid or a gnome, we have ourselves, but think about being able to peruse exact virtual replicas of major cities all over the world! With all the advances in virtual reality, 3D rendering, even smell printers, this is entirely possible. This is what I think of when I hear the phase “becoming digital”. We as a society have clearly made advances, but there is no telling whether or not we will ever get to that totality of virtual existence.

I need to make the distinction that this was not my definition of “becoming digital”. It is merely a representation of how I envision an amalgamation of our technology and culture in synergy to let us explore for ourselves the wide world of the web sans just looking at images. My definition of “becoming digital” lies in the way we interface ourselves both with our belongings as well as with the world around us. It all started with “becoming analog” when instead of talking directly to a person we spoke into a receiver which turned acoustic signals into electrical impulses. They could then travel long distances and be converted back into sound. Plays have transformed into television and movies, radio broadcasts have turned into podcasts. Sooner or later the post office will die, can you believe that? Of course you can, who sends mail these days except magazine and catalogue providers? Yes, becoming digital is the way in which we interface with the world around us. Addiction, open source, commons, WOW, online gambling, etc… are all by-products of this interface. For better or for worse, this will continue until we will no longer ever need to leave the computer…for better or for worse…