Digital

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

, cyber dystopia or algorithmic dystopia refers to an alternate future or present in which digitized technologies or also algorithms have caused major societal disruption. It refers to narratives of technologies influencing social, economic, and political structures, and its diverse set of components includes virtual reality, artificial intelligence, ubiquitous connectivity, ubiquitous surveillance, and social networks. In popular culture,

technological dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

s often are about or depict mass loss of privacy due to technological innovation and/or social control. They feature heightened socio-political issues like social fragmentation, intensified consumerism, dehumanization, and mass human migrations.

Origins

In 1998, "digital dystopia" was used to describe negative effects of

multichannel television A multichannel television service, also known as simply a television provider, is a type of service provider who distributes television programming to its customers for a subscription fee. Subscription television providers distribute television ch ...

on society. "Cyber-dystopia" was coined in 1998 in connection with cyber-punk literature. One of the earliest mentions is on 2004 when a academic and blogger was expelled for commenting on how the Sims Online Computer game based in the city of Alphaville had become a digital dystopia controlled by "president" Donald Meacham and corrupt faction of robot nobles had become a ''digital dystopia'' with crime, cyber-sex prostitution and general civic chaos. Digital experimentation of the elements of cyberspace became extremely invasive and took on the appearance of anarchy in Alphaville. In August 2007, David Nye presented the idea of cyber-dystopia, which envisions a world made worse by technological advancements. Cyber-dystopian principles focus on the individual losing control, becoming dependent and being unable to stop change. Nancy Baym shows a cyber-dystopia negatively effect of a cyber-dystopia in social interactions as it says new media will take people away from their intimate relationships, as they ''substitute'' mediated relationships or even media use itself for face to face engagement". The dystopian voices of

Andrew Keen Andrew Keen (born c. 1960Saracevic, Alan T. (15 October 2006)Debate 2.0 / Weighing the merits of the new Webocracy.''San Francisco Chronicle'' ("Age: 46")) is a British-American entrepreneur and author. He is particularly known for his view tha ...

Jaron Lanier Jaron Zepel Lanier (, born May 3, 1960) is an American computer scientist, visual artist, computer philosophy writer, technologist, futurist, and composer of contemporary classical music. Considered a founder of the field of virtual reality, La ...

, and Nicholas Carr tell society as a whole could sacrifice our humanity to the cult of cyber-utopianism. In particular, Lanier describes it as "an apocalypse of self-abdication" and that "consciousness is attempting to will itself out of existence"; warning that by emphasising the majority or crowd, we are de-emphasising individuality. Similarly, Keen and Carr write that there is a dangerous mob mentality that dominates the internet; since, rather than creating more democracy, the internet is empowering the rule of the mob. Instead of achieving social equality or utopianism, the internet has created a "selfie-centered" culture of voyeurism and

narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...

. John Naughton, writing for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', described Aldous Huxley, The author of '' Brave New World'', as the prophet of digital dystopia.

References

* {{Cite web, last=Naughton, first=John, date=22 November 2013, title=Aldous Huxley: the prophet of our brave new digital dystopia, website=The Guardian , url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/22/aldous-huxley-prophet-dystopia-cs-lewis, access-date=9 July 2021 Deviance (sociology) Cyberspace Social theories Technophobia

Origins

See also

Further reading

References