Digital media

Millions of babies being born into the world today will come to quickly recognise the rectangular-shaped devices so often put in front of their faces. (They will do this, perhaps, as technologies such as print newspapers, fixed-line telephones and analogue radio and television fade to the register of historical artefact.) From conception their progress through life will be captured, edited, shared and replayed through digital media devices with relatives, friends and wider social networks. The quantum and role of media in the exploration and documentation of their 'lives' will far exceed that of any generation that has come before them. Platforms for the production, storage and sharing of texts that articulate their activities, relationships, curiosities and the banal punctuations of their everyday lives will seem commonplace and obligatory. But how will this pervasive digital mediation of the everyday shape their sense of self, their sense of belonging and the ways in which they distinguish themselves and identify with others?