Interview with Felix Petersen and Stefan Kellner (Plazes)

It´s "Stefan" rather than "Peter" ;)

*arg* I have no clue where this comes from! Will change that, thanks!

Digital Lifestyle – en route towards a Turing society?

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Summary for the hasty reader:
This comment will define what is possibly meant be “digital lifestyle”. The most important for the author is not technology or the individual, but a *social* revolution. The internet facilitates a knowledge society and thereby a new form of interactivity. The single person becomes more and more a digital persona leading to a new way of society-building. Space and time are loosing ground.
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OK – Digital Lifestyle can mean a geeky lifestyle: my blog, my smartphone, my gadget – brand awareness and a statement of style in the digital age. Perhaps it is also a bit like „jetset lifestyle for normal people“ (Felix Petersen from Plazes in the above Podcast). Nevertheless technology has great impact: to make all personal stuff accessable without any limitations by place and time. But the real changes are not taking place on the level of indivdual lifestyle rather than on a societal level.

Digital Lifestyle – hype or something brand-new?
I’d like to outline societal changes by three points:
1. (real) Knowledge society
2. New form of interactivty (i.e. discussion on journalism vs. blogging)
3. Hybrid communities as the new paradigm of forming a society

In the last five years access to the internet raised significantly and by powerful search engines more and more of the world knowledge is traceable. Today more people are empowered to know much more. Just imagine projects like scholar.google.com or the several ongoing book-scanning projects. Or the growing Online-Libraries (PDFymising of knowledge). At the same time this is a different knowledge in comparison to former times because it is hyperlinked. In the past I had to look up in a encyclopaedia and/or visit a library. Today I use a search engine and wikipedia: thus I not only get to know how but get linked to other people (i.e. in a forum) who share same interests. This a new quality of knowledge in a Internet based society.

Second point is: the increase of interactivity. Again general public gets hold of means of production and we see a revolution to rise. You can always recognise this process by someone starting yelling because of loosing ground. Today journalists become afraid of the Beuys-phrase: everybody is a journalist. Just because of the new opportunities which come along with digital lifestyle. Easy access to the internet and easy way of networking – this is the new impact of interactivity. In former times I could write a letter to the editor which was printed among others. A few years later I set up a website: as a response I got email or someone signed my visitors’ book. Now I’ve got a weblog and by permalinks, trackbacks and services like del.icio.us or technorati discussions become interactive in a substantial way. This is some kind of new.

Now if you add latest developments like Plazes or OpenBC (social software), a new understanding of the individual evolves: every person becomes more and more a digital person (sometimes takes several personas). You can choose to show up as the real one or anonymous like many authors of weblogs. The more interesting it gets when you ever meet in *real* life (just take a few seconds to think about the asterisks and get a glimpse of what digital lifestyle could stand for). Perhaps there are Weblogs edited by machines (with kind regards from Turing) which always deny to join a blogger meeting (maybe in a little while they hire actors as a stand in for these meetings). Nevertheless this new form of interactivity creates a digital person and faciltitates to new ways of digital-real networking. Examples are mentioned in the Plazes podcast. Time and space become less important for building networks, even a society. To look on the bright side it is easier to find people sharing the same interests passing any limitations. On the other hand it is also easier to organize terrorism internationally. Now one could start to discuss responsibility in a digital age, what is a bit of a stretch. And perhaps we will get some answers on DLD06. I am looking forward to seeing you.

Hermann Iding

To email me:
hermann.iding@online.de