{"id":1414,"date":"2011-10-19T16:00:27","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T20:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/?p=1414"},"modified":"2011-10-19T16:00:27","modified_gmt":"2011-10-19T20:00:27","slug":"on-the-new-digital-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/2011\/10\/19\/on-the-new-digital-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"On the new digital culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Beyond the sheer mental workload, our thoughts have acquired a new  orientation. Of the two mental worlds everyone inhabits, the inner and  the outer, the latter increasingly rules. The more connected we are, the  more we depend on the world outside ourselves to tell us how to think  and live. There&#8217;s always been a conflict between the exterior, social  self and the interior, private one. The struggle to reconcile them is  central to the human experience, one of the great themes of philosophy,  literature, and art. In our lifetime, the balance has tilted decisively  in one direction. We hear the voices of others, and are directed by  those voices, rather than our own. We don&#8217;t turn inward as often or as  easily as we used to.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">In one sense, the digital sphere is all about differentiating  oneself from others. Anyone with a computer can have a blog now, and the  possibilities for self-expression are endless. However, this expression  takes place entirely <em>within<\/em> the digital crowd, which frames and  defines it. This makes us more reactive, our thinking contingent on  others. To be hooked up to the crowd all day is a very particular way to  go through life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">&#8212; William Powers, <em>Hamlet&#8217;s Blackberry<\/em>, New York: HarperCollins, 2010 (p. 2-3)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beyond the sheer mental workload, our thoughts have acquired a new orientation. Of the two mental worlds everyone inhabits, the inner and the outer, the latter increasingly rules. The more connected we are, the more we depend on the world outside ourselves to tell us how to think and live. There&#8217;s always been a conflict [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1284,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3715],"tags":[6593,420,6901,472,3812],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1415,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions\/1415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}