The manifesto on the death of virtuality

We continue to explore the enchanting world of new media and try to abandon social networks with the help of a timer, which gives us to sit only 5 minutes a day in social networks. And today the time has come for a kind of manifesto. The director of the misanthropy and despondency department, Vladislav Moiseev, climbed into a digital armored car and requires that we finally stop saying that technology is something foreign and opposed to a person, and the Internet is the so -called virtual reality (and ceased to use such timers).

1.

Quite often, we call everything related to digital technologies, virtual reality. This phrase has grown tightly into everyday life and illustrates the case when the language does not have time for dynamically developing realities. And this is a real problem, because an unconscious substitution of concepts occurs: what we call virtual reality has long ceased to be. The protective inertia of the language is normal. But our perception of the world directly depends on how we call this world. And the first thesis is that it is impossible to call profiles on social networks, messengers, all kinds of digital gadgets and other virtual reality is further impossible. She is no more, she drowned.

2.

Often virtual is understood by us as a certain simulation of the real, parallel measurement, which can be entered and from which you can get out. Such an idea of ​​the computer and the Internet was fair at the end of the twentieth century and was determined by the level of technological culture. The computer really simulated reality even at the interface level. Then the idea was popular that virtual reality was a different, false and even contrasted with conditional naturalness. Such a way of thinking has common roots with rejection of technology as a generally contrary to the human being. But back in the middle of the twentieth century, the philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote that there is nothing technical in the essence of technology, it has human essence. Technique is a hidden side of nature. A person gets her out of secret. But such a thought seems to have never been obvious and popular.

Large stationary computers acted as mysterious and even ominous portals, a person entered a hitherto unknown territory, did his business there and went out. Twenty years ago, it was not the norm, but rather, rather than elitist, it became a mass phenomenon in Russia only in zero, although now only 62% of Russians have access to the network. That is, the clear boundary between the digital technology area and the analogue world was. But as technic culture developed, the border was rapidly blurred.

3.

The era of bulky computers has gone. Once they were like wells, to which people approached to refresh and move on. The network was something chamber, had a meager geography. Now everything is different. The computer decreased to the size of the iPhone and is constantly with the user. The interface does not send anywhere else, it has long become abstract. Mobile Internet does not allow you to turn off the network. The antonymic pair “Virtual - Real” is replaced by “online - offline”, where online it becomes a synonym for a normal state, and offline - short -term shutdown from online with a further opportunity to return. But even when it seems to us that we are offline, we are potentially connected to the network. At any time, the Push notification can return the user to the screen, the profiles in social networks will constantly represent their owner, even when he sleeps or died. The whole surrounding life is organized by connecting to the network. The Internet is almost everywhere, the UN calls itthe basic right of a person along with the right to life, safety and drinking water.

4.

The use of new media is a long time to the reference of intellectual, sexual and other needs. Today, 92% of New York residents begin the day with the verification of social networks and mail. The ritual of documenting food on Instagram makes it tastier , this replaces the prayer. Special highlights of the sidewalk appear around the world for those who walk with phones in front of their eyes. A person constantly, inseparably interacts with digital technologies: his health is monitored by a special fitness tracker, work is done on a computer in full or partly, communication, entertainment, life and death are somehow reflected on the Internet. It is difficult to say that did not undergo digitalization. But it is quite obvious that the small parallel world of the “numbers” has long acquired a planetary scale, became part of reality and expanded its boundaries.

5.

The whole new has opponents who are ready to oppose simply because why not. The idea to divide a person and digital technologies so far many ascetics. In China, adolescents are placed in special camps of digital detox to treat the so-called Internet addiction. In the civilized world, good money is paid for a few days of the same detox. There is always some religious speaker, claiming that the Internet from the devil needs to be controlled and dose, as if in some Bible or the Qur'an it is written how many cats per day can bake on Instagram. You just need to wait until all these wonderful people naturally die out.

6.

Digital technologies have long acquired a prosthetic character, gadgets not so much replace parts of the body as expand it. A person thinks, remembers, reflects and recognizes himself with the help of digital technologies. We have never understood so well what we think about and what we like.

7.

A person is synchronized with the technical, today he is inconceivable without digital technologies, he is asocial and inferior without involvement in the process of using the Internet and digital technologies in general. The “Virtual - Real” paradigm is no longer relevant, it is enough to separate yourself from your account on the social network, even if you are recorded there under a fake name and only listen to music. The failed Google Glass project (it will certainly rise from hell and will be happy with us all) symbolizes the logic of the development of digital technologies that combine virtuality and reality into something integral. They are wearable, constantly involving the user, their screens are so thin that we are already looking not in them, but through them.

There is nothing bad and nothing good in all this, you just need to admit to yourself that the world has changed.

The author expresses special gratitude to Ekaterina Nikitina for the help in preparing this text.