"For the message of any medium or technology is the change in scale or pace or pattern that it intrudes into human affairs." (McLuhan 8)
We as individual human beings are being shaped by the proliferation of digital technologies into our everyday lifestyles. The internet is the 21st century phenomenon that has changed the globe forever, but terms and conditions apply. It is now a network that the developed world is completely at mercy to. The media technologies spawned by the world wide web imbed society with an all encompassing reliance on computation. At any given time we will be staring at a screen or listening to an iPod, using GPS or even just holding our iPhone; - the device that combines all the above functions in an intuitive and responsive little pocket tool, almost permanently on our persons. And with this handy instrument on us at all times we are obligated to communication, entertainment and information. We are objectified into being 'users' not people. The user is immersed with choice and coerced into interaction. Our digital revolution runs our daily routines and when we rely so heavily on convenient media technologies we are no longer free agents . We have become hypermediated human beings, where these technical extensions of our physical selves, are as vital as a limb or organ.
Digital media will continue to shape us, independently and as a society, as it increasingly acts as a conduit to experience, invading our real space and time. How many of us have wasted hours idly surfing the internet, or aimlessly flicking through endless TV channels? We are bound to choice. But even with the multitude of options open to us in cyberspace we are still being herded in pre-ordained directions dictated by omniscient authors.
"We are asked to follow pre-programmed, objectively existing associations." (Manovich 61)
By following hyper-links on Wikipedia for example we are following someone else’s pre-meditated path through the information, jumping from one piece of subject matter to another. But all too often the user mistakes these connections as their own and so we continually follow externalised thought processes, gradually narrowing our own natural associations. Similarly, social networks such as MySpace and Facebook externalise relationships so that we don't have to, and this decentralisation has fragmented society into everyone's new portable plaything. The Blackberry smartphone means that no boss ever has to leave the office. Microblogging services such as Twitter means a project manager can text his entire team in one foul swoop. Escape is futile. As we move from an industrial civilisation into an information civilisation, we're online and locked in.
