The digital age is upon us. Have you been to the movies lately? We no longer order popcorn from a menu but from a cascade of digital screens that animate the tasty treats above our heads. Movies themselves have literally morphed into another dimension straying from their apparently outdated two-dimensional counterparts. Then there is the concept that used to be known as a telephone. The primary purpose of phones is no longer verbal communication— it is now an all-in-one device that is constantly by our sides.
So how can we not question what effects technology has on our lives? As a soon-to-be-graduating senior I wonder how different my college experience would have been in past decades. When our parents were our age they relied on books for their information. If they wanted to gather their friends for a party they would have had to physically speak to them rather than click on them for a Facebook invitation. In the past pictures were personal treasures as opposed to news feed commodities “HD” were just someone’s initials and you would likely be committed if you were to try to “Tweet” something. It is yet unclear if our society can keep up with the rapid changes.
As communication moves from organic face-to-face interactions to impersonal text-based exchanges of ideas the very idea of conversation changes. Yet this new form of digital interaction lacks a key element of depth and is remarkably similar to what we might call “small-talk.” We may be able to convey ideas about what we are doing or how we feel about an issue but real in-person communication is still required for the type of emotional transmission that separates humans from other species.
The sharing of information was the original purpose of the Internet and the resources available online are expanding at an exponential level. This leads to a revolutionary transformation of the way in which we consume information and the way in which we deem it factual. Books were once the primary source of knowledge yet nowadays we can search a multitude of publications for the same information and then decide for ourselves which sources are truly credible. This of course is a new challenge of living in the digital age: the Internet has very few gatekeepers to control the balance of false and factual information that is uploaded and therefore we must mentally train ourselves to dismiss or accept what we see and read.
The primary challenge of the digital age for some may be keeping up with the physical devices that provide the exchanges of information. Somehow we are beyond the point where technology is consumed to make necessary tasks of life easier such as the advent of the washing machine refrigerator or copier. We are now seemingly one step behind the rest if we cannot keep up with the latest smart phone social network or music player. Having a Facebook is not a life necessity by a long shot yet telling someone you have chosen to abstain from the social network is becoming comparable to telling someone you don’t have running water.
We have reached the point where we are all connected. Few of us lack a mobile phone or computer to keep ourselves constantly connected to the rest of humanity yet the ease of access to our fellow humans may be driving us further apart. Our reliance on information from the Internet may be compromising the integrity of the information itself. As we filter into a society rooted in technology we must be conscious of these challenges so that we may fuse the new digital age with the values that deem us inherently human.
