If you thought I am here to discuss with you the ups and downs of Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress", you better turn back because I am not here for that. My discussion is closer to reality - the one I can see and experience.
I was reading some excerpts from the book "The World is Flat" by Thomas L Friedman. I didn't make more than 10 pages for 2 reasons - one is that I am still not used to or rather comfortable reading an e-book and second I do not have ample time to read these books at this moment. But somehow those 10 pages reignited a thought I have had some days before.
We talk about globalisation and digitalisation of this world. In fact the results are not hard to notice. I am writing this here at my room at the odd hour of 1.30 am and before I wake up from my supposed to be night slumber, you might be reading it already, some 100 miles away from here. The facilities of chatting, e-mailing has brought the far off places so near that we can voice chat with people living in other parts of the world as if they were just next door. In fact I am more connected to people living in some far off place than the person living in the next town. There are more of these from business point of view like outsourcing and all but I will not go into those things. At this moment I want to see this whole thing from a ground level state.
So now we are more connected, more in touch with people, we have transcended the barriers of distance to a great extent, we are ready to put down our views more easily and so on... the results are immense.
Really???
The truth is we have locked ourselves in the Digital Fortress. We have stopped coming out of our room to admire nature, we prefer to do so through the computer. We don't read books, we read e-books. We have lost personal touch. We prefer to talk to our next room neighbours through y/m and gtalk than face to face. We can pretend to be somebody else behind the walls of this fortress just because we don't want to be recognised. We can lie without being caught. We have forgotten how to talk, that words are not the sole means of communication, expression complement them. We have created a virtual world for ourselves and this time because we can communicate with these individual virtual worlds, this vituality has started to repalce reality. We have changed our basic human means of communication to digitalised signals and we are happy with it. Are we not?
Has all these actually brought us closer? No. It has changed the human community into a bunch of isolated nodes that are interconnected with each other. These isolated nodes are the digital fortress I am talking about. The ones we design to hide ourselves or to project ourselves according to our (or rather other's) choice.
I am not complaining. I too can see the immense opportunities that this digitalisation has opened up for us. But even all those advantages you or I can list does not have the power to break these isolated nodes. It only strengthens it and probably it will forever.
Have any of you ever heard about Johny Quest? May be this world is nearing his kind of world.
I was reading some excerpts from the book "The World is Flat" by Thomas L Friedman. I didn't make more than 10 pages for 2 reasons - one is that I am still not used to or rather comfortable reading an e-book and second I do not have ample time to read these books at this moment. But somehow those 10 pages reignited a thought I have had some days before.
We talk about globalisation and digitalisation of this world. In fact the results are not hard to notice. I am writing this here at my room at the odd hour of 1.30 am and before I wake up from my supposed to be night slumber, you might be reading it already, some 100 miles away from here. The facilities of chatting, e-mailing has brought the far off places so near that we can voice chat with people living in other parts of the world as if they were just next door. In fact I am more connected to people living in some far off place than the person living in the next town. There are more of these from business point of view like outsourcing and all but I will not go into those things. At this moment I want to see this whole thing from a ground level state.
So now we are more connected, more in touch with people, we have transcended the barriers of distance to a great extent, we are ready to put down our views more easily and so on... the results are immense.
Really???
The truth is we have locked ourselves in the Digital Fortress. We have stopped coming out of our room to admire nature, we prefer to do so through the computer. We don't read books, we read e-books. We have lost personal touch. We prefer to talk to our next room neighbours through y/m and gtalk than face to face. We can pretend to be somebody else behind the walls of this fortress just because we don't want to be recognised. We can lie without being caught. We have forgotten how to talk, that words are not the sole means of communication, expression complement them. We have created a virtual world for ourselves and this time because we can communicate with these individual virtual worlds, this vituality has started to repalce reality. We have changed our basic human means of communication to digitalised signals and we are happy with it. Are we not?
Has all these actually brought us closer? No. It has changed the human community into a bunch of isolated nodes that are interconnected with each other. These isolated nodes are the digital fortress I am talking about. The ones we design to hide ourselves or to project ourselves according to our (or rather other's) choice.
I am not complaining. I too can see the immense opportunities that this digitalisation has opened up for us. But even all those advantages you or I can list does not have the power to break these isolated nodes. It only strengthens it and probably it will forever.
Have any of you ever heard about Johny Quest? May be this world is nearing his kind of world.
3 comments:
Hi Anki !!! :)
CONGRATULATIONS FOR FIRST JOB !!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :)
True ! So very true sister .... so often a person exists merely as a network entity which - as of now comprises of ... orkut/chat accounts, blogs n profiles etcetc ... however this Digital Fortress does allow us to hide behind a mask of good-looking words .... coming to persons with god intentions too... I too feel even if I chat with someone on a webcam so that I can almost feel him/her in front of me ... HOW can it dare to replace meeting someone actually??? Why should it ??? The facility was made to bring the outer world closer, NOT to move the inner one also to a minimum distance of privacy where all you interact is an electronically generated visual signal which 'resembles' the other person so efficiently .... its purpose was never to be so .. it is only us who have misinterpreted it perhaps .... so that we often actually tend to do all wht u say .....
Nice title ofcourse ... :) ...
btw who is Johny Quest ??
good* intentions
Well, I agree with you but only partially. We all have become the parts of network locking us down in the digital fortress.... but on the otherhand, it is the only way to be in contact with our beloveds who are far from us.
Every thing has its pros and cons. It depends on how you take that thing. This "Digital Fortress" which u r talking about is the only means by which i can talk to you on phone... i can have a chat with you ... share the latest pics with someone else... and make u realise as if i am just aside u.
I also agree that it has somewhat brought the closer persons a bit far. But think that if this DF wud have not been there and someone who was not willing to talk to you, are u sure that he/she would have talked even then??? The two persons seperated by a wall can also be a thousand miles apart....
But I can definitely say that this DF has hidden the live expressions... Now a person can easily hide the feelings which he/she have for the other persons... He/she can pretend to be close to you even being not willing to be away...
I also agree that it has stopped us from coming out of our busy schedules and admire nature.(you can see that about 80-85% of professionals are working in software jobs where u r deadlocked in front of your PC without even knowing whats happening outside ur building. You dont even come to know that its raining or not, is it sunny or cloudy)... I have a faint memory of an article/poem... saying.. is it possible to say that u love nature by having a small garden or rather just 2 or 3 flower pots in your house?
But the thing is, all this globalisation (in your words DF) is the one due to which we are developing , it has reduced the distances.
Remember the time when there was no trains, no internet, so costly phone lines. It was almost difficult for you to know the wellbeings of ur loved ones.
What i would say is that this DF have brought both +ve things as well as -ve things. It just depends on your attitude which side of coin you want to go for.
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