Reflections on what we have learnt in this unit

At the beginning of the year when I chose to take the module digital cultures, I was a little oblivious to how it would all unravel and how my understanding would develop further. I was aware of numerous digital devices and the impact they have on society, but anything more in depth would be new to me! Throughout my first year of the module I have learnt where the web originated from as well as how we rely on it significantly. Different elements of digital cultures have allowed me to realise numerous facts, such as the astonishing figures relating to cyber stalking, the pros and cons of the internet and the former stereotypes that are produced from its usage.
 

The unit itself has been interesting and highlighted numerous facts I was unaware of, it additionally has made me reflect upon my usage of the internet and how much I do rely on it. Before the module began, I didn’t really know the statistics that came with cyber stalking. I knew what the event was and how much it affected those targeted, but what is officially considered cyber stalking was a new piece of information delivered to me.

Even though we covered a large amount of topics relating to digital cultures, as progressing through the module it became clear that the topic is so huge it would be impossible to cover it in one year. With this in mind, I took it upon myself to further develop my understanding and do some back ground research. For each Blog post I created, I took time to reflect upon my notes made in the lecture as well as doing additional research online and through books. This further allowed me to be fully aware of what points I was deliberating upon and expanded my knowledge further.

Overall I feel I have learnt a great deal in this module and it has more importantly allowed me to look at the digital world in a different light. Even though the internet is amazing and a great invention, I have recently learnt that it does in fact have many flaws! Subconsciously, I find my self reflecting upon my time used on the internet as well interacting with digital devices and now my module is over, I’m going to attempt to cut down my usage!!

Identifying and discussing a substantial issue created by digital cultures, not discussed recently

Digital cultures generates a variety of benefits for society, it allows us to expand our knowledge, communicate with others worldwide and creates a sense of protection due to all our online actions being tracked. Whilst creating benefits for society, there is no surprise that the digital world also leaves us with a variety of issues.

In my former posts I discussed the idea of cyber stalking and cyber warfare, both huge issues produced from the digital cultures around us. In addition to these issues, when reading back through my posts, another problem came to my attention. Regardless of how much we benefit from the digital world, the main issue that was highlighted for me was how technology is in fact ruining our basic social skills.

The statement may seem a little far fetched and dramatic, but if you analyse the amount of technology used, it is in fact true. Originally, social skills were people’s main priorities and engaging in conversation with people was part of everyday life. Essentially, the digital world has taken over and our social skills have been deducted.

The majority of children own technical devices and communicate via those as opposed to general conversation. This reduces the amount of manners people tend to have, as well as an understanding of someone’s genuine emotions. There is often a sense of competition with regards to owning the newest, most extravagant piece of technology. This furthermore expands upon my point being that social skills are often neglected when over powered by technology. In addition, this further compels the theory of digital and social divides discussed in my prior posts. The social divides cause the exposure of neglect the younger society have on basic conversational skills. The older generation are genuinely separated from the majority of technology, enhancing their social skills and also allowing them to be a lot better in comparison to younger ones.

I think this issue is very important when discussing the digital technology in society today. The impact it has on social skills and basic manners is in fact astonishing. Interacting with people physically is avoided when communicating via text messages, you are unable to see someone’s true emotions and people social skills are greatly derelict.

Identifying a digital culture on which you have changed your mind on during this course

Throughout the module of digital cultures, it was in my best interest to cover a variety of issues relating to the digital world and how it has a great affect on our lives. Now I have completed  a great deal of research, I have taken some time to analyse the points I made previously and comment on how I have in fact significantly changed my mind in comparison to my initial response.
 

The digital world itself appears to be fascinating and you could scrutinize different responses continuously and still not get bored for a long period of time. In my personal opinion, the most significant response that shocked me hugely was the influence the internet has on the majority of our lives in general. It came to my attention that when commenting on the structure of Web 2.0 and the different aspects of tagging, that without realising we will connect with the internet various times daily. Connecting to the internet doesn’t necessarily mean sitting at home on a laptop or computer and searching various ideas, but we connect to the internet using mobile phones, going through security and walking down the street through CCTV. While I found this astonishing, I did in fact, find how much we rely on the internet more concerning. Whilst commenting on usage of the internet, I realised that we often create searches we have done before, or searches for answers we deep down already know.

This reliance on the internet is unhealthy and avoids us using our basic knowledge to answer questions or queries we have. I will openly admit that I often search things I have previously searched and do too adapt a sense of laziness and search something that I will most probably already know. As a country this reflects our personalities a great deal, the use of the internet is portraying us to be a lazy nation. The majority of people have easy access to the internet and with this in mind it becomes the easiest option to quickly search something, instead of tracking back in our minds and working it out.

This concept came as a surprise to me, I was unaware of how we really did rely on the internet and the statistics of how much it is used daily came as a shock. Even though I am a culprit for using the internet when I don’t necessarily need to, when analysing usage I still was left shocked. To conclude, after a lot of in depth research on this point, I have significantly changed my opinion on relying on the internet compared to my naïve and oblivious approach to begin with.

Cyber Warfare

Cyber warfare was originally defined by professional Richard Clarke as “actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation’s computers or networks for the purpose of causing damage or disruption.” Technology is important around us; their destruction is ultimately considered warfare.
 

The world we live in is known to be a world of mass global threats.

“Squishy Part”

The impact the internet genuinely has on the world around us is noticeably significant. The internet influences our daily life and the majority of people have some sort of interaction with it everyday. An important statement that often is created when discussing interactions with the internet is that just because we have the devices allowing us to embrace technology at current, it does not necessarily mean we will always have them.

Many things can happen to stop the internet, authorities and governments have power to shut devices down. An example of this action taking place was when establishments in Egypt shut down the internet, refusing access to everyone in the country. I mentioned this situation in my previous post; additionally it reinforces the issues that regardless of how popular the internet is, it seems there still is power that can stop it.

In modern times battlefields tend to use digital devices whilst fighting the opposition, before we know it humans will not be needed there. With this in mind, it is rightly questioned that, does this even make it a battlefield? The original image of a battlefield is soon to be abolished and will formally be replaced with the idea of the hacking of digital devices to fight against the resistance.

“Operation Orchard”

Cyber warfare can lead to kinetic warfare and further examples of this took place on September the 6^th in 2009. The Israeli air force’s jet attacked and destroyed a Syrian nuclear facility. No personal attack was actually made on the event and it didn’t turn into a battlefield. Technology controlled the situation and the victims were attacked through a hacking situation. The event was a strong act of warfare.

After researching into acts of warfare, it seems the more digitally enhanced the country, the more prone the country is to different digital attacks. The country becomes more vulnerable and fragile due to their interactions with different digital devices. Individual attacks on different countries does not require much confidence, but purely just an in depth knowledge on the devices. Countries with more international bandwidth require more protection as they are in great danger of digital warfare attacks. It is now national policy to develop offensive warfare systems to protect different countries.

“The Wire”

It seems to be that everything connected to the internet is prone to continuous problems, so therefore why are the majority of devices connected to the internet? People tend to assume that the technology is a great thing, but through my post I hope I have highlighted different aspects that emphasise that this isn’t always the case. I do not believe we should get rid of technology at all, in fact far from it, but I do believe we need an adequate and sophisticated response to warfare issues.

Globalization, technicity and the digital divide (s)

Globalisation can simply be defined as the change we have seen in our lives on a much larger scale. It focuses primarily on changes that happen worldwide and explores the content of trade, so the goods and services and additionally the interlocking of different ownerships. Online websites tend to support the development of globalisation and through this specific Blog post I intend to focus on this aspect and expand further how the use of technology is increasing globalisation worldwide.
 
CALL ME, TEXT ME

The following figure may seem impossible, but it statistically has recently been proved that 130% of people in the UK own phones. The fact suggests that many people living in the UK own either 2 or more phones, whether this means they are simply just activated, or in use everyday, they still add towards the astonishing figure highlighted previously. This may seem hard to get your head around, but it further highlights how we rely on technology everyday and how this can influence and add to the globalisation taking place worldwide.

At current, worldwide, we are present with a situation referred to as the “digital divide”. When localising this situation, there is a constant reference to the development and usage of the web.  In the society we live in, the majority of interactions take place online and the divide began when some people found it harder to interact with the web than others. It is important to comprehend that when making changes in society, we have to be careful we do not block people out. It came to my attention when analysing my personal use of the internet, that for the older generation this interaction is a lot more difficult and a little daunting. For me, using the web is part of my every day life, I don’t particularly find it difficult and I rely on it significantly, but for my Grandparents it appears to be a completely different story!

With the digital divide taking place worldwide, this also causes a social divide between those who access technology and those that don’t. These divides all simply began after the rapid development of technology and overall can affect the majority of people all over the world. In families a further diversion often occurs when there is someone in the family that is technically illiterate, this social divide in houses has often been the cause of a social divides outside of the home and further. After evaluating the different diversions that have occurred through technology it seems you can not ignore the interconnectedness.

The main concern people tend to have when refereeing to the use of technology and the digital divide focuses on the question asking “what happens when there is no technology?” It seems unimaginable and like the situation would never occur, but what would happen if there wasn’t any technology in our lives? A democratic divide took place in Egypt when authorities cut all of Egypt’s internet connection, the mass protest resulted in the whole country being unable to access ANYTHING online. This itself became a crisis and reinforced the idea that the internet produces its own problems and that we rely on it way too much.

Thinking about the relationship I have with the internet and different examples of technology, I know my life would change dramatically if I was unable to access the internet or use technical devices. I would for example, be unable to create this Blog post and further complete my degree! It seems, that for a student aged 18 years old, I can openly admit I rely on the use of technology far too much and do not have a clue what I would actually do without it! (Quite pathetic I know)

Digital Games and Players (Game Studies)

Gaming most certainly isn’t a new hobby; playing games can originate as far back as the Egyptians when they played Senet. According to Wikipedia, “Senet is a board game from predynastic and ancient Egypt.” The invention, as well as population of video games has grown dramatically over the past few years. It is now almost certain that everyone you come across has had some sort of interaction with a video game at some point in their life. To define a game, it doesn’t necessarily have to conform to the stereotypical image of an online video game played by “nerds” or “geeks”.  According to a variety of statistics, many of us would have played games throughout our life. Further in this blog post I will explain the conventions of a video game as well as expanding on the concept of the magic circle.

“As the game goes on, the game gets harder”

It seems obvious now, but before the theory of making the gaming components harder as the time span develops on a game wasn’t well known to many people. This furthermore, allows the principle of cheats to arise and take place in many games. Questions are often asked about what is considered cheating on a video game; some may regard modifying the actual game as cheating, where as others would consider this just enhancing their ability to play. Mia Consalvo produced a lot of research revolving around this idea and additionally compared it to “transgressive behaviour”. People creating technological devices to enhance their game play and to give themselves an advantage is formally known as transgressive behaviour.

Video games represent space, so obviously we expect the space to be coherent. However, there are certain characteristics that video games can not actually conform to. For example, on some games you reach stages where there are invisible walls or the end of a road with nothing in sight further. These images are not real life; so many people formally question why they are allowed to be represented on games. These design systems are often considered cheap and aren’t favoured by many professionals. With this in mind, it leaves me in the position to agree with those who consider false images presented online or on games to be wrong. I personally do not think any images should be created or shown online; it eventually leads to a misrepresentation and can ultimately cause many problems.

My last point focuses on the magic circle of gaming. In life we are used to playing games. In the society we live in we have been brought up to understand wining is good and losing is at the end of the day bad. We are always encouraged to win, regardless of how difficult the situation is. The magic circle is a representation of real life and how gaming affects us. Whether you do not consider yourself a keen video game player, there still is no doubt about it, which you formally would have played some sort of game.

Video Games

After a lot of in depth research it seems that the first video game we can track goes as far back as to the 1950’s. This first and foremost highlights the obvious point that video games have been prominent in our lives for literally years, and as technology continues to develop, it will most probably remain this way forever.

There continues to be a stereotypical image and definition relating to someone that plays video games appears to be immensely unsociable. Whilst analysing this definition further, I came to the conclusion that this is in fact far from the truth. Those that play video games continuously are in fact the opposite and are quite sociable as they appear to be engaging in conversation with those they are playing against or even their online game player character. Statistics have recently shown that video games, in total appear to appeal to a huge age bracket of people, with noticeably the youngest player being 6 years old and on average the oldest appearing to be 86 years of age. This on its own proves that the population of video games is outstanding and ever increasing. The statistic not only shocked me hugely, but also made me realise that video games do not stereotypically just include playing football related or violent games on a play stations or Xboxs, but can also include bowling or tennis games on the Wii – a criteria that strongly appeals to the older generation of people.

“Video skills turn you into morons”

There is no arguing that through time we most probably have all heard the statement indicated above, however it has been proved over and over again that video games – regardless of their content, do not physically harm you. Video games interestingly do not sit outside of cultures and remain popular to a wide variety of people, not just the original stereotypes. The main stereotypes that appears alongside video games is that they are unhealthy, only played by men and all games have a violent nature. After my wide range of research and much deliberation in my lectures we found that this is not necessarily the case and near enough my whole glass – mixed gender, have at some point played a video game and thoroughly enjoyed it!