Definition of Digitist:
a person who has no idea there are people who a) don’t own the latest digital device(s), and/or b) do not socialize on facebook.
There is a societal trend I have been noticing more and more of these days. It is the difference between people who live much of their life in the online digital realm, and those who live their life in the analogue world of actual eye to eye real time contact, with far less emphasis on interfacing with the world through a digital communication device. I refer to the former as “digitists.” They are convinced of the superiority of their digital world, and are either oblivious to or intolerant of people who are different from them.
I’ll tell you some of the tell-tale signs of a digitist:
Digitists have fancy phones, so they never give any directions to parties or events. They assume that you have the phone they have, so all you need is the address. I did a trip to California 2 months ago, and I was endlessly astonished at the lack of anyone telling me anything about how to get anywhere. There were no maps in the rental car. There was an assumption that I possessed the digital device needed to find any address on planet earth. Sorry, my cell phone is 7 years old.
I went to a party last weekend and all that was on the invite was the address. Sure, if you have a GPS enabled device, you could get right to it, but without, well, it was a building hidden behind another building, and even with google maps beforehand it took me forever to figure it out. I was not alone. A lot of people were wandering around. We had assumed that the address would be visible from the street. It wasn’t. Frankly, I thought it a tad thoughtless of the person running the event to not make any mention of the issues of finding the place. Digitism does this to people. They just assume they don’t have to do certain things for you any more.
I have been meaning to get a modern cell phone, but none of the ads are at all helpful to newcomers. They all assume that you already know all about modern cell phones, and you know things like the difference between 3G and 4G. I haven’t a clue what that means. Cell phone makers, your digitism is making you unappealing to first time buyers. Can you even conceive of our existence?
Another symptom of digitism is long delays in “chats.” If I am engaged in a conversation with you, even in “chat” mode, I drop everything and put all my focus on you. I would think it terribly rude to simply wander off and start talking to someone else, but in fact many youngsters are perfectly fine carrying on 5 chat conversations all at once. When I am chatting with someone online and I realize I am one of the 5, it just astonishes me that people live like this.
I occasionally pop in on twitter, but for all the emphasis on twitter and facebook, there are staggeringly large numbers of people who do NOT communicate in these realms. I confess, staying in touch with such e-Luddites requires such ancient technology as calling them, sending individual e-mails, and actually scheduling lunch get-togethers. It’s old fashioned, and awfully slow, but in some ways those connections are far superior to the newfangled systems which are, admittedly a lot faster, but a whole lot shallower. All too often, digital technology, which claims to be making us all more connected, is becoming an excuse to be detached and distant, and at times, somewhat inconsiderate.
© Justin Locke
