Digital technology is one of the most significant shifts in technology throughout human history. It provided a fundamental change to how we interact with the world around us. But for all the advantages that digital technology brings us, it does come with some limitations. These can be seen today, and they can also be seen as we look at the past. Let’s get into it.
In the modern world, digital technology is inescapable. It’s in essentially everything we use. The alphabet we use to read and write, the systems that run the economy, the computer I’m writing this on now. These are all digital technologies and tools that we use to navigate daily life. It is the standard for communication, entertainment, and industry.
Here are some advantages of our MODERN digital world and tools:
1. Global Accessibility: It’s easier than ever to send a message quickly to the other side of the world. I can text my friends in Australia using WhatsApp and they will get the message in only a few seconds. I can call them as if they’re in the next room. Outside of communication, a document could be viewed by someone in India, someone in America, France, Antarctica, Norway, all at the same time. We’re more connected than ever and it’s never been easier.
2. Ultimate Precision: Digital technology, particularly coding programs and tools, and modeling software allow our industry engineers and workers to create and simulate their work with razor precision. We can build rockets that go to the moon with our technology, which is only possible with a digital system with digital tools. We can build and test amazing things such as planes, buildings, bridges, rockets, and more without ever needing to spend the money and effort on materials for rigorous field testing. Of course, that never hurts if you have the infinite budget of the military or something, but the technology is incredibly useful.
3. Infinite Scale: The scale of the digital world is immense. A document could be copied and reproduced as many times as you could possibly need or want with no degradation in quality to the thing. Try passing a physical letter between 1,000,000 people and see how good it looks when you get it back. It’d be ruined! But a digital file can be shared infinitely and survive flawlessly. There’s also the ceiling of technology, which is improving every year. The computer that ran the Apollo program took up a whole room and had only a small fraction of the computing power as the phone in your hand. Give it a few more years and who knows how small tech will be. A fascinating and quite frankly really funny example of infinity online is the fact that someone managed to upload a file (in very low resolution) of the entire known universe, which is thought to be infinite, into the Steam Workshop page for a game called Garry’s Mod.
But there are also some limitations and drawbacks with our fantastic technology. Here are a few:
1. Digital Obsolescence: Our technology advances so quickly that a lot of the devices we used to think were unstoppably powerful are now close to useless. An iPhone from 2008 is unusable in today’s world. The Apollo Program computer can’t even run Google Chrome. Our demands for more powerful systems comes with our rapid progress. Files from only 20 years ago may become unreadable as we move on from certain file formats.
2. Security and Integrity: Digital systems are prone to hacking by people with nothing better to do, so that it a major concern these days. My health insurance had a huge data breach back in 2023, and I hear news of similar breaches happening every few months. And with the rise of AI, deepfakes and artificially made documents are becoming more and more common, and it’s growing harder and harder to tell what’s real. I fear the day when AI gets good enough to generate a video of someone committing a crime they didn’t commit. And this tech is in MY hands, EVERYONE’S hands, though I refuse to use it whenever possible.
3. Tactility: This one is less critical, but digital stuff means you’re interacting with everything around you through a screen, which kind of sucks. Not only is it bad for our eyes, but it robs you of actually interacting with a physical object. I don’t mind writing on a tablet, I use one almost every day to take notes or draw, but I personally hate reading on one. Nothing beats that physical feel of holding a book and turning a page. Plus they smell nice.
Now let’s have a look at some more advantages and limitations of digital technology in a more historical context.
Some advantages:
1. Preservation: Preserving a 500 year old document from sailors long passed is easy and safe. Scholars can examine and study a document by viewing it online, and pose no risk to potentially destroying a fragile sheet of paper. You can read a Shakespeare play on your computer right now if you want to.
2. (Near) Universal Access: Other than modern works occasionally being locked behind paywalls, which is annoying, everyone can mostly read anything. In the olden days, certain documents were only in libraries or vaults. What if you wanted to read something in a French library? Tough luck, champ. Now you can view stuff from all over the world regardless of if you have the money to travel there.
3. Restoration: Using some modern tech like 3D modeling or LiDAR, we can reconstruct an ancient civilization based off of what’s still around and study it. We can upload old manuscripts and have teams of people translating them. We can rebuild the vocal chords of King Tut using software and recreate what his voice sounded like (this did happen). The possibilities for reconstructing history are endless.
And some limitations:
1. The Loss of Context: With a digital representation of something, we can’t really get the context of WHY it was there. Someone could have written an angry letter, and we could have the letter available to us on our screens, but we can’t always see the relationship between person A and person B. I can see a picture of the Mona Lisa whenever I want, but I can’t always see the physical brush strokes that I could see if I went to see it in person.
2. Material Difference: We also lose out on the sensory information that comes with the materials of a thing. I can read descriptions of ancient currencies, but they don’t give me the feel of the coin, the weight, the smell.
3. Reliance on Digital Infrastructure: If someone were to bring down all the tech in the world for good, we could rebuild it sure, but that information, the collective of humanity’s culture and knowledge would be lost. It’d be like the burning of the Library of Alexandria a thousand times over. In that world, only what we have physically written would survive. This happened in Blade Runner.
Personally, I think the digital world is awesome and scary. I less fear what AI will be capable of and more fear how people are going to use it. I want to be optimistic though.