Digital is not virtual, but real: it has concrete consequences on our lives. As the new year dawns, here are some trends already well underway that are likely to become more pronounced, for better or for worse.
Published at 7:00 a.m.
Do you speak the “ brain rot » ?
Every year, new words appear, and they often come directly from the internet. Elected word of the year 2024 by the Oxford University Press, the term “ brain rot » echoes the implicit anxiety we have about the harmful effects of our online lives. He implies that binge consumption of digital content would cause a kind of brain rot. We can also consider the “ brain rot » as a metaphor which refers to our systems of moving signs. Like a decomposing organ, our language is metamorphosing at great speed. demure “, of ” brat » and “ skibidi “, we are witnessing the appearance of an algorithmic, memetic language, full of jargon and cutting-edge cultural references, a language that arouses concern, in that it excludes more and more uninitiated people.
The impact of social networks on our children
At a time when Australia has just adopted a law which prohibits access to social networks for those under 16, the consequences of hyperconnectivity among young people are carving out a special place at the heart of social debates. In Quebec, we are awaiting the report this year from the Special Commission on the impacts of screens and social networks on the health and development of young people. Although it was high time that we looked into this issue, we must nevertheless avoid cutting corners. The effects of our digital sociabilities are plural, contextual and nuanced; for example, social networks can be harmful, but sometimes help to break the isolation of marginalized young people. Should they be regulated more or simply banned? Should we instead focus on awareness and digital education? Allow me to hope that we will also come to be interested in online child labor, like certain American states such as Illinois or California, which recently adopted laws aimed at financially protecting children. children who appear in their parents’ monetized content.
Place for e-deologies
PHOTO EDUARDO MUNOZ, ARCHIVES REUTERS
The alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare boss Luigi Mangione last December 19
A neologism from author Joshua Citarella, the word “e-deology” refers to the complex political identities that some young people adopt online through contact with digital subcultures. Does cybernihilism, apocalyptic accelerationism or anti-democratic transhumanism mean anything to you? What we must especially remember is that the binary spectrum of left and right now struggles to fully circumscribe the heterogeneous ideological profiles of our hyperconnected young people. Despite the fact that we have scrutinized the digital footprint of Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of the boss of UnitedHealthcare, it remains difficult, for example, to categorize him politically. Note also that the massive deployment of certain technologies such as generative AI, together with the imperative to finance their development, has largely contributed to the dissemination of several marginal ideologies among communities of Internet users, such as long-termism, extropianism or even singularitarianism.
The speculative vision
The ethos of the web has favored speculation for several years. While new cryptocurrencies are routinely emerging, trading applications allow everyone to play on the stock market, while the world of online sports betting is booming. During the last American presidential election, the Polymarket site, a prediction market platform allowing people to bet on real events, attracted media attention by predicting Trump’s victory more accurately than the surveys. In our financialized and unstable world, we are therefore encouraged to take risks, to benefit from the uncertainty that surrounds us. By formulating predictions and establishing probabilities, we come to develop a speculative vision, that is to say we begin to consider reality in terms of its speculative potential. This trend is also felt well beyond the web. Barely out of the house, the latest winner of Quebec reality TV Occupation double for example published a video on his social networks where he explained to his subscribers how to maximize their chances in the world of dating using mathematical probability and game theory.
The ordinary instavidéaste
In a conference at the last Venice International Film Festival, cult filmmaker Harmony Korine recently declared that IShowSpeed, an insta-video maker (streamer) 19-year-old American, was the new Andrei Tarkovsky. Korine thus underlined the central place that the streamers in the media world of young people, at the expense of Hollywood. However, as live streaming becomes more popular, it is set to transform much more than the world of entertainment. For example, it is reinventing commerce through live video sales, and even politics, by boosting the circulation of ideas. Moreover, the figure of the instavideographer multiplies and diversifies so much so that it becomes almost banal: it is IShowSpeed, but it is also a mother who cooks, a traveler in Bangkok or even a disaster victim in the middle of a storm.
