Are our collective lives and love stories becoming super duper digitised? Or is that just Sci-Fi nonsense? You can't beat a good old fashioned paper back, or a romantic encounter in a bricks and mortar venue...
In a chilling scene from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 classic “2001: A space odyssey”, the HAL 9000 super-computer changes from an even-toned, talkative, "thinking and feeling" robot into an evil murderer who tries to sabotage David Bowman's space mission to Jupiter.
Far-fetched? Once upon a time, people thought that 2001 sounded incredibly distant and futuristic. Lots of our grannies and grandads watched with horror the amazing advances of technology and imagined that computers would take over the world. There was a palpable fear (and a movie industry happy to play on that fear) that computers, or rather, robots, would become capable of human emotion and render us helpless, just like David Bowman floating in space. The year 2001 has come and gone and Arthur C. Clarke's apocalyptic vision has thankfully not come true. At least not in the same way he predicted.
Technology indeed, seems to be taking over the world; everything is becoming computerised and digitised. Consider our use of computers and the internet, as well as digital TV, DVD players, MP3 players, mobile phones and a whole host of other blinking, beeping and sometimes malfunctioning gadgets that are designed to make our life easier.
But the technology industry is massive and mostly based on hype. Tech companies dub every new release “the next big thing”. Predictions of “lifestyle revolutions” often don't come true. We are constantly bombarded with the latest and greatest “apps” that we simply cannot live without. Weary, anyone?
According to Shaun Hobbs, Home Server Manager for Hewlett Packard UK and Ireland “In this technologically driven age it is easy to get carried away and think that everybody is embracing digital and leaving physical behind,” HP conducted a survey and found that 86% of the population of Britain has access to some form of digital media. However, 68% still prefer photographs to be physical rather than digital, 64% for music, 75% for films and a massive 95% for books.
“Our survey shows that this (digital takeover) isn’t the case. Britons are on an evolutionary journey with media still being bought on multiple formats and enjoyed using a variety of devices.”
Maybe these survey results are pure nostalgia and don't reflect our truly digital world. After all, you would be hard pressed to find a household that doesn't have all of the devices mentioned above, and many more besides.
Digital Love – “...Serendipity is the hallmark of inefficient markets...”
Have you ever looked around a packed bus or tram during rush hour? They are full of people who refuse to look at each other. Everyone stares at their shoes and avoids eye contact for fear of being forced into an awkward conversation with a complete stranger. But if you believe statistics, 31% of these people will rush home and log onto one of thousands of internet dating or friendship sites to do exactly that: chat with complete strangers.
In 2002, American technology magazine “Wired” predicted that, "Twenty years from now, the idea that someone looking for love without looking for it online will be silly... Serendipity is the hallmark of inefficient markets, and the marketplace of love, like it or not, is becoming more efficient.”.
For shy people, creating an alter ego to find love or friendship online is a massive breath of fresh air. They can take those tentative first steps without worrying about “going red”, or ultimately making a bad impression and going home alone. Skinny, balding, gap-toothed wallflowers become handsome, well-built Matt damon lookalikes in their cyber persona. And it's not just for perverts and socially challenged people. Increasingly, “normal” people with busy schedules are finding online dating ideal.
These people eventually have to meet each other in real life. Or do they? Some people spend their whole romantic life online, never opting to meet their “cyber partner”. Virtual Dating goes one step further. It combines online dating with online gaming and involves the use of “avatars” who interact in a virtual venue that resembles a real life dating environment. Lonelyhearts can meet and chat in a romantic “virtual café” in Paris on a virtual date without leaving their homes. In 2007 Scientific American said that virtual dating is the “next big thing” (there's that term again). Weird? Maybe. Popular? You betcha.
Digital Death – Digital Life's country cousin
Digital assets can have monetary value (domain names, online gambling accounts etc.) “Digital death” refers to what happens to your online information and assets when you die. The first “Digital Death Day” conference took place in London in May where tech nerds got together to discuss what to do about the critical mass of information we leave behind on overstuffed servers when we die. The value of unclaimed digital assets floating around in cyberspace is estimated to be worth millions.
Even more sinister is the site mydeathspace.com, a play on the popular myspace social networking site. It is designed to give dead myspace users a “digital afterlife”, an online communal bereavement platform that's very sweet but a little bit creepy.
Every industry has been affected by technological advances, not least journalism (the internet has made this job ridiculously easy). There is a growing trend of using the internet to find information about murderers or their victims in order to give a profile of the person in a news report. In May this year, a deranged internet addict murdered three prostitutes in Bradford. Newspaper reporters were able to present a very complete profile of the murderer from information gleaned from his social networking site, personal website, internet traffic, and even what books he ordered from amazon.com (recent purchase: “Women and the Noose – A History of Female Crime & Execution”). This information enabled the journalist to give a very clear picture of the man. But was it really his life, or just his digital life?
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