THE QUESTION
While everyone is praising communication in our digitally consumed world, I shall attack this from a different angle. (As I am one to play devils advocate in any conversation) This particular counter point being “Is digital communication having a detrimental effect on the physical?”
So to pass a college course I sit tapping buttons of no real world importance and creating a purely digital blog, people can read entire libraries of books and works completely on a tablet, moreover an estimated 80% of the worlds money being just a figure bouncing around different databases.
The Internet has us better connected in this virtual world, exchanging data and helping us elevate the pressure of having to ask our peers for the information we need. Instead we go straight to the answers without considering the solutions. But have we been left lacking in the real world?
I have now posed a question that may be harder to answer compared to my short time thinking up said question.
Being a man of manners but also a frequent London Underground commuter I shall use my experience of facing the daily trip into the heart of that fair town to somehow justify my grandiose statement.
I see evidence of this social decline all over. I challenge you the reader, the next time your waiting at a station count the number of bent heads and jabbing fingers, all sucked into some world of a disgruntled bird or commenting on a picture they aren’t even in (“OMgz Babe u lk gr8!!!xox!one”).
Is this the future of communication? We proudly traipse around, digitally shouting in to what may as well be a jam-jar with some witty status or thought that we have come up which we feel we must share just to prove that we too are socially networking with our peers. But that’s it, you have closed yourself off, you have approved these select 100 people to be your universe, all else who doth so stand in your way shall be shunned by your mobile distraction device as you delve into it’s sphere of safety.
But to hammer home my point I shall take on board our first lesson on this digital media course of using my personal experience instead of the commonly used overview, even if it is shared commonly by the select few who feel that the past 5 years of communication has taken a step backwards in truly connecting us together.
TL:DR Technology has it's setbacks.