The Digital Age
by jdaly010
In class we touched on many of the issues modern society has found with our digital existence. Our digital experiences shape us in various ways as not only individuals, but as a collective community. These experiences can have positive and negative effects. As we continue to move forward in technology we put more faith in it. The idea of this scares me greatly. We put far too much faith in technology with no end in sight. Everything from traffic lights, bank accounts, and our entire economic system is online and vulnerable. Technology is flawed. As much as we like to think our creations are perfect, they are far from it. Our designs are often times much like the very thing that created it, flawed. These flaws are endless and come unexpectedly. With the creation of social media I think we have lost a lot as a society. There are a lot of statistics that show just how much we are losing. One of the main things we lose track of in our social media experience is time. One scary statistic shows the average Facebook user spends 9 billion minutes on the webpage per month! Douglas Rushkoff touches on this main issue of time in the digital world. He clarifies the fact that technology does not live by time as we do and that it is important to note this. He also states “My time is mine.” which I think people lose track of because they feel some need to please their friend, co-worker, or family member by using social media and taking part of the digital trend. I agree with Rushkoff as he sees technology only scaling upward and that our needs to utilize this technology do not need to scale upward with it. I enjoy Rushkoff’s style of thinking. He seems to have a very clear idea of technology and how it should be used. I look forward to reading and learning more about his views.
