What's New About Digital Life?

When data is digital, it exists as a sequence of numbers. It can be moved, stored, converted, imported, or deleted. Like a set of stacking crates or an IKEA living room set, the data can be rearranged in all sorts of different forms for different purposes: it is modular. Campbell gave the example of taking a picture with a digital camera. "I can put this image on a T-shirt; I can e-mail it to all my friends; I can change all the colors or superimpose another image on top of it." While it was possible to do some of these tasks with analog photos—you could make multiple copies and mail them to friends; you could take a negative to a T-shirt printing store—all those jobs can now be quickly and easily completed from a personal computer.

The malleability of information in today's digital new media stands in contrast to the linear nature of analog old media, in which, for example, a television show could only be viewed on TV at a particular time. Today that same show can be reposted online and cut, spliced, and edited by a lay computer user. In other words, information and content now exists in database form: The user decides how and when to consume it, and the definition of user is no longer confined to a professional class with specialized equipment. Media, to put it succinctly, has been democratized. "Old media gives us a window on the world, a set picture. New media gives us a control panel, a way to control the world," said Campbell.

These new capabilities are seeping throughout the culture, "changing our expectations about how we receive and store information," said Campbell. They are also transforming basic structures. "In just the last few years, work has evolved from the place you go to the thing you do," said a 2007 report on alternative work styles for Herman Miller, the Michigan-based office furniture and design firm. Because many of the tasks that could once only be completed at an office during office hours can now be done anywhere on the planet that has an electrical outlet, cell phone reception, and access to a broadband network, the old definitions of work are changing.