Disciple of the Digital Age

Yesterday my daughter sent me a letter from Russia, Pushkin Mountains, the place where the big Russian poet Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin and his family lived. Now it’s Museum there. The visitors are encouraged to write a letter to their parents with the expression of their gratitude to them (good idea!), using then contemporary writing tools:  goose feather pens.

Can you imagine to write with a goose feather pen? And poor Pushkin had written his verses with it ?! And became popular in almost illiterate Russia ? The same was with Dostoevsky and great count Leo Tolstoy who used their wives’ abilities to copy their manuscripts dozens of times.

Nowadays the time is different- the tzardom of computers, Internet, generally speaking, of digital age.

One can create on Internet the impression of digital self. Our wired world takes this process to a new level. Today we have an access to “post-production” tools to engineer our identities. These free or inexpensive applications allow virtually anyone to dramatically modify his or her digital self at will as they strategically “modify” the profile photos they post on Facebook or the descriptions they share on dating sites. Our physical bodies continue to merge with our digital environments- we are moving from “you are what you wear” to “you are what you post”.

The prime example is Olivia, 10 years old schoolgirl from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

She got her own channel on You Tube SheDaUnicorn with 1,3 k subscribers.

Every so often she put new posts which appeal to all kinds of people: young, old, or her peers. Her digital self coincides with her physical one, she is a real disciple of our new digital age, and we are happy that she finds time for everything in her life: go to acrobatics classes, swimming pool, to master in dispute sessions at school and many other useful things. Good luck, dear Olivia!