Living in an age when it's impossible to be 'digitally disconnected' is a strange old place. Seeing as i'm off to London next year to study Digital Sociology at Goldsmiths I thought this post would be completely relevant. Last night I had two friends over for dinner and we discussed how much our lives have changed over the past 10 years.
The Past: We were discussing when we used to go 'on nights out' to the park, trying to remember who went out with who, and our fashion sense- or not as the case actually was, some epic disasters there! We wished that taking pictures on our phones and uploading them to twitter, instagram and facebook was just as easy as it is now. To look through these would be lovely, to relive some memories that we shared together when we were growing up - also horrific, embarrassing and hilarious.
The Present: Nowadays, i can't get away from knowing everything about everyone and what my best mates cousin is doing in australia. The way that the digital age has progressed means that we are constantly connected. Which of course, is great- in a way. I love seeing pictures of my friends and knowing what they're up too, but is it going to become a little too much?
My mum is currently in Thailand, and she has been emailing me from facebook. She emailed me a VERY long email, which at that current time I was entertaining friends so didn't actually have time to read it- but I had opened the email (maybe that was my mistake!). About twenty minutes later I received another email from her saying, 'isn't it weird that i can see that you've read my message?'. ARGH.
This is also a new feature of the iPhone! So now you know if someone is purposely ignoring you, or worse- someone knows if you're ignoring them! Admittedly you can turn this feature off- but you see where i'm going?
The Future: annoyingly when i think of the 'future' the logo: 'The future's bright, the future's orange' pops into my head- which is definitely digital and technology overload! But the future of living in a digital world is exciting to see what the next advancement will be, but also massively scary. It won't be long until face to face communication won't actually even be necessary- all communication will have gone digital. Of course, I know this sounds pessimistic as I love all the digital things that I own- I love going through my university photos with my friends, remembering all the fun times we had and communicating with my friends and family (yes mum, i mean you) when they're travelling. So its fascinating to think, and see, what happens next!
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