ABSTRACT
Evidence of profound technological metamorphosis is all around us – from smart phones and tablets to self-driving cars and drone warfare. The digital technology revolution is not an issue that only impacts the economy but one that affects the whole of society, including personal life and identity. Today digital technology has come to mean, among other things, laptops, iPhones, Facebook updates, wireless networking, Twitter status posts, video chats and cloud computing. Information and communication technology has spread throughout social and personal life, as people now find themselves routinely (and sometimes compulsively) checking their devices for texts, emails and social media updates. Technology, in the sense of dynamism, liquidity, mobility and speed now reigns supreme, and it often feels as though life in the fast lane of instant electronic messaging is the very air which contemporary women and men of the advanced societies breathe. Digital technology is the life-blood of our ‘always switched on’, ‘instant response mode’ society – in which the cultivation of speed is increasingly considered an end in itself. Indeed, the twinning of technology and speed – or what has been termed the social acceleration of social life – has become a central concern in the social sciences, through a heady conceptual cocktail of Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, Manuel Castells, Manual DeLanda and Alvin Toffler.
