NB: Sorry this post took so long to get out. I had a disk crash last Sunday.
I think there is an argument out there that goes something like this:
People are either good or bad. They can use digital tools like twitter and Facebook for good or bad purposes. The tools are just tools.
I am not sure that’s entirely right.
I think people live in the Real World, enter the digital world via twitter and Facebook and then have their experience reflected in the Real World, which is a different thing. There is an arc from Real World to digital world to Real World along which people travel. It’s not just people picking up tools and using them.
Facebook and twitter ask for a real name, a photo and have an About Me section (even one of only 160 characters). They also allow for a digital world “address,” an associated website.
If I fill those in correctly, then I can become a Digital Inhabitant, someone who has a presence in the digital world – and I am modeling, all through this blog, Facebook as a digital country.
So now I have a presence in the Real World and one in the digital world. Here are two things about the Real World that are different than the digital world:
- In the Real World everyone lives on an economic slope – I am either better “dressed” than you or I am not. Not so in the digital world. Once I am there – and the digital divide and the GOA are obstacles not to be understated – the digital world is, as I said in the last post, flat. At the moment.
- In the Real World people have different, and sometimes unequal, rights. Not so in the digital world. In the digital world everyone who uses e.g. Facebook (is a citizen of facebook) has to abide by the TOS and has the same Rights and Responsibilities. And so on with other services.
And here I give thanks that Facebook originated in the USA and the rights of the one reflect the rights of the other. (In other words, how closely aligned are the laws and rights of citizens/users of digital countries/social utilities with the laws and rights of the countries in which the corporations that create them originate?)
What does that mean for the Real World?
I think it means that Digital Inhabitants look around and are more likely to notice that, although they are created equal in the digital world, they are not in the Real World. And are therefore more likely to want to do something about it.
The Real World on twitter:
