The Sociological Effects of Digital Technology

For this blog, I will attempt to analyze the sociological effects the digital age had and is still having on us. First, however, I will provide a brief history lesson of the subject at hand.

It is not surprising that this issue has turned into a hot debate amongst professionals from various fields. Long before the internet and other digital tools were created, new forms of media "have always caused moral panics: the printing press, newspapers, paperbacks, and television were once denounced as threats to their consumer's brainpower and moral fiber." (Pinker, 2010)

One of the more obvious effects of digital tools, including but not limited to video games, is alienation. In Mix It Up, David Grazian explores the feeling of total flow experienced by those that are totally immersed in mediums like online games. Players who fall into this state slowly become disconnected from the real world and lose the feeling of the passing of time, which Grazian says is illustrative of the increased levels of loneliness and alienation. 

Another effect of digital environments, such as social networks, is the small degree to which someone living in the digital age has control over his or her social identity. Palfrey and Gasser, co-authors of the book Born Digital, provide an example of a 16 year old girl living in the agrarian age. If that girl wanted to change her social identity, how others view her, she could travel to a distant land and start a whole new life with a new social identity. With the rise of the digital era, however, this dramatic change has become near-impossible. If this girl was living nowadays, her social identity would probably be greatly influenced by her online interaction with family members, peers, and online friends, thanks to digital environments like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Keek, along with the other various social networks and hubs of communication that belong to the internet.

If we take a look at who exactly has access to and uses these fancy digital mediums and social networks, we notice immediately yet another effect of digital tools that we see in everyday life--social inequality. This is because the poor and those of the lower working class usually do not have access to things like social networks and online video games. As a result, their social identity is much less complex and less rich than those who are privileged enough to own and use such tools.  

  

My 8 year old brother with his Ipad

                 

My Ipad in his age

                                                                                                                  

These were, in summary, some of the sociological effects the digital age and its accompanying tools are having on us. What other effects can you think of? 

Facebook is using you

If you have a Facebook account, you should read this.

Social Movements: The Arab Spring

Revolutionary social movements against government have become very common now. It all started with Tunisia where the tipping point occurred to inspire many countries around the world to stand up and hold their own revolutionary social movements, asking for changes in the governments and the ruling system.








If the voices of the people are heard and the government takes their interests seriously, then the social movement will end soon. However, if the people felt their voices are not being heard and nothing is going to happen about their interests they will keep on protesting. Sometimes the ruling party will resist the change even if it meant killing the people of the country like what is happening in Syria and what was happening in Libya. In that case the revolutionary social movement will try to get armed and fight back or stick with a peaceful protest. To get to that place and start moving, the people know that they will have to give many sacrifices. At this stage many people feel they have nothing to lose. Many people suffer of deprivation, objective and relative. Many people don’t have clean water to drink or a shelter for protection, others feel that they are not getting what they deserve relative to what others working close to the government are getting. They feel that the money of the country is not being distributed in the right way, they feel its being stolen by those close to the government.



As a Syrian my self, I know that the movement that is taking place in the country surprised many people in Syria. Even though the people of many Arab countries were rising against their governments at the time, many expected that Syrians will not move because they would be scared by what happened in the 80’s when the former president, the father of the current president, killed over 40,000 civilians when the Muslim Brotherhood movement was flourishing. However, as I said earlier, it seems that many people don’t have anything to lose, they know what’s the consequence of their action, but they just don’t care anymore.

Of course, the Internet has played a significant role in these movements. For example, In Syria the media is not allowed in. So, the media coverage comes from revolutionists who record videos of the events and send it thought the Internet to different news channels. Moreover, the Internet has played as a platform for the revolutionists to communicate and organize the movement across political boarders. Revolutionists inside Syria communicate with other revolutionists outside the country, and those outside the country also organize protests against the Syrian government, like in Qatar and France.

The Internet Revolution!

“The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow” (Gates, 2003). Since the birth of the Internet in 1969 until now, it has been known as the staircase not only for communication, but also for information, entertainment, and education.

In sociology, many sociologists talk about the social impact the Internet has on people and how it plays important roles in creating social interaction and interpersonal communication. For example, famous social networks like Facebook and Skype have changed the way friends connect and interact with each other.



With the aid of Internet, communication becomes easier and much quicker than other traditional mediums. Internet has changed the way we communicate and entertain; we can upload, download, and share games, music, pictures, and videos with our friends who live across far away continents. In addition, you can gain access to chat programs that can be uploaded from the Internet directly to your computer or even to your cell phone, for you to make relationships, contact friends and relatives, share ideas, gain social skills, and identify new cultures and nationalities.



Internet has also changed the way we obtain education and has offered academic facilities. For example, students can attend online classes, join courses and sessions, listen to lectures by experts and professors via YouTube, and send their assignments through Blackboard so that professors don’t have to second-guess any handwriting. Moreover, through Internet, students are able to check the availability of books, articles, journals, DVDs, and other sources instead of visiting libraries and consuming time searching. Northwestern University library for example, uses this technique by supplying the NUcat website, which has really taught me a new searching procedure and saved my valuable time with only a few clicks of my mouse.





Internet has certainly a profound impact on us that is far beyond what we would have expected; it has changed us by bringing conveniences and improving our thinking. That’s exactly what the communication theorist Marshall McLuhan (1967) has talked about. In other words, according to him, Internet is not only a two-way communication medium, by which users exchange messages and information, but also it affects the way users perceive and process that type of knowledge.




For me, it’s true that Internet steals my body most of the time, but it gives me a more motivated and enhanced mind instead. In fact, Internet provides me with both absolute communication and isolation, but its constructive side outweighs the unconstructive one.