Hyper-digitization in an Experience Age: a Faustian Bargain?
The World Wide Web was launched for public use in 1993. This marked the beginning of what is colloquially known as the "information age." Today, over thirty years after its introduction, the information age has dwindled, and the icons of the information age have become mere relics of an era bygone. Thanks to smaller, pocket-sized screens, a plethora of digital stimulants, and increased accessibility to the internet, the digital experience of users has morphed into what may be described as the "experience age".
What makes the information age of the internet so archaic, compared to its successor, is the nature of digital human interactions. When was the last time one used a chat forum, barring gaming discords? How often does one update their Facebook status? The status box is an icon of the information age, where the user interaction was mainly predicated upon the sharing and organization of information. The experience age is different and is driven by micro-computers, smartphones, and high digital connectivity. Bitesized shorts are the name of the game. Substack, perhaps, is a possible exception in this regard, as it is fundamentally a platform meant for substantive content, instead of visceral, dopamine-filled multimedia.
This transition warrants a question: what is causing this change, a shift from the information age, which characterized the early days of the internet, to an experience age, where one, arguably, finds themself today? In short, is the transition illustrative of the changing nature of our engagement priorities and the specific platforms that optimally facilitate the user expectations?
A Shift from the information age to the experience age
Social media, in its early days, was built upon the principle of information accumulation and epitomized by sites such as Habbo, Friendster, and Myspace, which acted as information warehouses where the way to gain digital traction was to dispense information, without much focus on the multimedia aspects. The digital identity of a person, therefore, was an amalgamation of the information they saved and dispensed - the culmination of their posts, saved images, videos, and texts, etc.
Today, the digital experience holds little semblance to that of the information age. The smartphone and ease of internet access have created a new realm of digital experience, a phenomenon that is particularly pronounced among the younger generations, who, with their idiosyncratic habits, shorter attention spans, and high dependence on the digital world, are often colloquially described as the “iPad generation.” Every cell phone has a video camera or two. Therefore, everyone has a story to tell, the option and the temptation to create a carefully-crafted digital avatar of themself. This provides the user the ability to televise their life at the moment. You are no longer just your profile, but the culmination of your digitized information. A user is not simply themselves, but a carefully-crafted digital artifact, with smoothed-out edges, always tiptoeing around an increasingly narrowing Overton Window.
It is perhaps a rather savory reality of what could seem innocuous moments we share and the vicarious experiences we provide to the viewer.
The Experience age is here to stay.
The transition of certain demographics and their user engagement among various social media sites is also indicative of an overall shift from information-driven platforms to experience-driven ones. Between the fall of 2012 and the spring of 2017, Facebook slumped from being the "most popular social media site among teens", from 42% to 11%. In the fall of 2020, the giant of the information age was the most popular social media site for only 3% of the teens.
On the same note, let us consider the meteoric rise of experience-driven sites. In 2016, Snapchat became the most popular app among U.S. teens while Facebook lost users in the same demographic. Similarly, Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram are the three most popular sites for teenagers, at 34%, 29%, and 25%, respectively, while Facebook and Twitter collectively are the most popular, in less than 6% of the users in the same cohort. The figures available for 2020 continue along these trends.
User interaction
Even social media platforms, which defined the digital town square of the 2010s, are losing steam, becoming legacy sites. There is an information-first method of communication. A user could update their status or post a tweet and then add metadata along with a limited range of emojis. The information is interpreted in conjunction with the profile of the said user and a particular context.
The method of self-digitization in the experience age is rather different. The main currency of exchange is the recorded and shared experience, most of which often leads to a quite literal interpretation of a recorded experience. Essentially, it boils down to this:" Give me your attention and I will share with you my experience". The individual identity and the accumulated experience take a backseat, in place of hyper-sensationalization, emotional ignition, and marketability of the televised experience.
Self-branding in the experience age comes at a price. The more literal and real the experience is, the more convergence there is between the real and digital lives of the users. You are no longer able to create a carefully orchestrated image of yourself that is devoid of any peculiarities of your day-to-day personal life. Instead, you are a digital automaton; a being that has to navigate in a digital world where the lines between one's real life and their digital identity are becoming increasingly murky.
So what does it all mean? What implications does the experience of user interaction have on us?
Democratization of information
While the newer avenue of digital expressions has created a myriad of opportunities for businesses, entrepreneurs, and artists, it has also democratized the shared human experience. Perhaps, one of the most pertinent aspects of experience-driven social media is how it has marred one's ability to control information. The "arbiters of morality", be they under the guise of religion or national security, may not be able to control the "wrong think" as effectively as they did in the past. Unlike information, experience only needs hype and sensationalization to gain traction. It is, therefore, much more difficult to curb since it eludes many of the constraints attached to user engagement in an information-driven platform.
A Faustian Bargain
But the effects on the individual may not be as worthwhile. When an individual inspects the triangular relations between their true self, their digitized persona, and the fellow digital consumers, the situation becomes bleak. They realize that Faust may have inadvertently sold his soul to the devil. They realize that a person is now a digital simulacrum in a digital age. They are no longer human beings with real thoughts, sensations, and lived experiences, but they are who they are perceived to be. It is a 2D, reductionist personification of a user and their sense of worth, which is entirely dependent upon the engagement and position validation of others. The individual abandons their real-world experiences in pursuit of digitally-induced dopamine spikes.
The "attention economy" is a product of the experience economy. An ad-based business model of social media companies is predicated upon the addictive nature of their sites' usage. A business, therefore, has all the incentive to render its product addictive to users. The phenomenon has led to adversarial consequences to human well-being and the psyche. One's digital simulacrum is in an incessant quest to seek digital engagement and validation, all with diminishing dopamine spikes with time, while the platform profiteers off the usage, engagement, and interactions of its users. In the free market of digital expression, both parties have all the incentives to persist with the existing arrangement.
We are converging our online and offline identities. The quality of our experiences, our inner thoughts, and our introspection are now being watered down for the sake of external acceptability. We have surrendered all forms of intellectual rigor and substance for the sake of hype and reactions.
The moral conundrum of a digital consumer in the experience age seems quite similar to that of Doctor Faust. Faust, of course, is an iconic figure in German mythology, a scholar who lived his entire life as an ascetic, so he eventually calls upon the devil to grant him knowledge and magic, to indulge in unlimited pleasure. Mephistopheles appears to Faust as an emissary of the devil and presents him with a contract that he will serve him for the rest of his life, in exchange for his soul, which will be dammed for eternity.
The purpose of drawing comparisons is not to engage in hyperbole. It is not to disregard the myriad of ways in which social media and the internet have alleviated our lives; rather, it is with one specific vein of the internet: the transition to the experience age. The self-digitization in the experience age presents us with an unprecedented set of challenges, which may not have yet been fully understood. A type of hyper-reality in which the purpose is to create utterly bombastic, superficial viscera; a veneer of character.
If this is a prelude to the next generation of our social interactions, what will it do to our psyche? How will it affect our consciousness and the way we perceive the world? What will be the long-term consequences of abandoning substance and depth for momentary thrills and hollow sensations?