Introduction
The debate over weather digital media is good or bad is a futile argument and a waste of time. Digital media is just another medium and the true "evil" people see in digital media is the subject it represents, not the media itself. Digital media is an easily accessible form of non-digital media or a mixture of non-digital mediums. It's just another way of showing things and doesn't necessarily add to the "evil" of the subject. For example, the hands down most controversial video game "Grand Theft Auto" isn't thought to be overly violent and too inappropriate because it's a video game, it's because the game has you selling drugs, killing people, stealing cars etc. The game itself is only the carrier of the subject, you can't blame someone for giving you a cold because they were just carrying it, they didn't add to the disease.
Background
Throughout this essay I will use words like "Good" and "Evil" to describe how people view digital media. The main criteria people use when defining these opinions about technology is how this technology affects the viewer or player. "Good" media is viewed to make the audience smarter, more knowledgeable and retain good morals and values. "Evil" technology is viewed as "a waste of time", or "it'll turn you brain into mush", or its too violent or immature or of bad taste. Most people will agree that people find Digital Media entertaining weather or not it's "Good" or "Evil", the argument I make is based on this definition of "Good" or "Evil" media.
"Feed" Arguments
In the book "Feed" by M.T. Anderson, people of the future use devices that are surgically implanted into the brain and can allow people to communicate and buy things almost instantly. The book clearly blames technology for the cultural decline in the future, however when you look at the way this social decline happens, the Feed Corporation is the one to blame. The Feed corporation would send advertisements directly into people's brains so that they couldn't get away from them, those people then bought the products that were advertised. The corporations advertised other products based on what they bought. The teens in "Feed" were buying things based the corporations which shaped them. This made them buy anything that the corporations sold and they all became obsessed with fads and had no idea what was going on in the world. This is the true "evil" in the book, consumerism truning into apathy and eventually into ignorance. Even though the Feed was able to distribute the message of the corporations, the ultimate evil in the situation was the Feed Corporation.
In "Feed" the main populace, the 73% percent of people who had Feeds, had no idea what was going on in the world because they were distracted by trivial fads. These fads were written to be ridiculous, dressing like old people was "in" when the characters were young, owning fake birds was "in" at some point and even having lesions was "in". The character Quendy even had plastic surgery to cut open her skin in several areas to look cool even though it's obviously unhealthy and dangerous. Even today we're distracted by celebrity gossip, people talk about Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift's VMA award speech instead of discussing the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, or the genocide in Darfur, or even the discussion on health care policies that will directly affect Americans. This distraction doesn't originate from Digital Media, in ancient Rome the colosseums were used to entertain the masses to distract them from the inner turmoil within Rome (Andy's "Bread and Circuses" lecture). Therefore the apathy and ignorance exhibited in "Feed" and in our own culture isn't derived from Digital Media, it's derived from our desire to be entertained.
In "Feed" the main populace, the 73% percent of people who had Feeds, had no idea what was going on in the world because they were distracted by trivial fads. These fads were written to be ridiculous, dressing like old people was "in" when the characters were young, owning fake birds was "in" at some point and even having lesions was "in". The character Quendy even had plastic surgery to cut open her skin in several areas to look cool even though it's obviously unhealthy and dangerous. Even today we're distracted by celebrity gossip, people talk about Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift's VMA award speech instead of discussing the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, or the genocide in Darfur, or even the discussion on health care policies that will directly affect Americans. This distraction doesn't originate from Digital Media, in ancient Rome the colosseums were used to entertain the masses to distract them from the inner turmoil within Rome (Andy's "Bread and Circuses" lecture). Therefore the apathy and ignorance exhibited in "Feed" and in our own culture isn't derived from Digital Media, it's derived from our desire to be entertained.
"Feed" also bombards the reader with advertisements from the company's that exist in the book. These advertisements are inescapable and are beamed directly into people's heads. One explanation for the cultural decay in "Feed" is the obsession with consumption, the teens in "Feed" constantly say things like "lets buy something" they don't even know what to buy, yet the need to buy something is there. Everything is also incredibly accessible and there's a direct relationship between accessibility and the need to buy, the less work you have to do to buy something the more you'll feel like buying it (paraphrased from a discussion with Jakob Friedman). This idea of accessibility and excessive advertising isn't specific to Digital Media. On the streets there are tons of poster ads, some buses have TV screens showing ads on them, there are bill boards everywhere, McDonalds goes so far as to even have a sign about the McCafe in the McDonalds (chances are if you're INSIDE the store you know about it). Convenient stores have shelves for candy at the counter, because it's right there people are tempted to buy it, like the store, its convenient. Excessive ads and easy accessibility are techniques used by companies to get more sales, this can be done through Digital Media, but its certainly not exclusive to it.
"Everything Bad is Good for You" Arguments
Steven Johnson's book "Everything Bad is Good for You" brings up the idea that people can learn from digital media. He argued that video games were able to teach reasoning and logic skills, complex TV shows taught us to use our memory to get inside jokes or to get plot twists that referenced other episodes. I believe that humans can learn from anything if they enjoy it. People can learn from books, drawings, comic books, physical interaction etc. The only difference between digital media and non-digital media is the fact that more people prefer digital to non-digital. Digital media only takes what non-digital media does and makes it more entertaining via the use of images and sounds. The same way you can use logical reasoning to think about how you would tackle a reality show situation, you can also use to figure out how to solve a problem occurring in a book you're reading or any story you've been told. This means that the subject is causing the development not Digital Media itself, the "good" in Digital Media comes from it's subject as well as the "bad" in "bad" Digital Media, the subject is what matters.
Steven Johnson's theory seemed logical and correct, however he didn't specify how much of that development happened due to the medium its expressed in and how much development came from the subject matter. He stated that following complex plots in TV shows made people think about what was going on, but if the story was causing the development then the same thought process could be applied to any other story telling medium, several of which are non-digital. He stated that video games made people obsessed with them and they tried incredibly hard to solve problems within the game, while he said in the book that there was no counter part to this I disagree. Riddles, physical puzzles, crosswords and sudoku puzzles can be very addicting, they teach people the same logical skills you may get out of a video game but in a non-digital way. All of the types of mental development he listed was based on the subject of the Digital Media, non of these "developments" were proven to be exclusive to the media they were expressed in.
Steven Johnson's theory seemed logical and correct, however he didn't specify how much of that development happened due to the medium its expressed in and how much development came from the subject matter. He stated that following complex plots in TV shows made people think about what was going on, but if the story was causing the development then the same thought process could be applied to any other story telling medium, several of which are non-digital. He stated that video games made people obsessed with them and they tried incredibly hard to solve problems within the game, while he said in the book that there was no counter part to this I disagree. Riddles, physical puzzles, crosswords and sudoku puzzles can be very addicting, they teach people the same logical skills you may get out of a video game but in a non-digital way. All of the types of mental development he listed was based on the subject of the Digital Media, non of these "developments" were proven to be exclusive to the media they were expressed in.
Personal Thoughts on Digital Media
Digital media is just an extension of non-digital media which is an extension of the real world. Any problem that digital media has caused can be caused by non-digital media, even if it's not as drastic. Some problems "caused" by digital media may even stem from underlying phycological problems. Many people argue that the internet makes people "fake", they pretend to be someone else, but naturally there's a difference between who we think we are, what we're viewed as and who we really are. Technology didn't create that problem, it's always been there because it's a part of human phycology. People complain that TV shows and movies give us a skewed view of reality, for one, this problem could be caused by books, but also our view of reality will be skewed anyways because we're all biased in some way because of how we're raised or taught.
Conclusion
Digital media is a representation, humans can only represent or recreate things. The constant prefix "re" means that people just make something again, which means there's an original. Because there's an original, everything we make or do has been made or done before. Digital media doesn't bring up any new problems because at its base its a representation of sights and sounds that we've seen before, it's impossible that digital media could make new problems in our society when it represents things that have already existed. Likewise any positive thing has been seen before in nature and is simply captured in the medium. Media is just a form of capturing something, when you put a bird in a cage it doesn't change the way the bird looks or sings, it's just put there so people can enjoy it, the bird can be ugly or pretty but the cage has nothing to do with it. People need to realize that they can't blame a medium for expressing a bad subject, people get caught up in blaming things without realizing the source which just showcases their ignorance. The world is full of bad and good but media just captures it, and Digital Media captures it with lights and sounds.
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