The digital age breeds its very own (chronic) diseases.
In the digital age, which has turned most interfaces inwards and made them invisible, it is notable that there is a growing number of visible, even physical, medical conditions that materialize in the offline world. According to Wikipedia, “a disease refers to the invasion of the body by pathogens,” and it appears as if the digital economy has begun externalizing the costs of its functions by invading the consumer’s body and soul. Increasingly, the consumer is paying the price for ubiquitious entertainment, total immersion, constant connectivity, seamless communications, and global content production, with injuries and mental disorders which stem fom excessive chatting, gaming, emailing, and blogging, and which can be summarized as “morbus digital” -- the digital disease.
“You cannot NOT communicate,” wrote the psychologist Paul Watzlawick four decades ago, alluding to the impossibility of preventing (non-verbal) communicative cues. This axiom has now turned into an imperative: “You MUST not NOT communicate.” Incommunicado is no longer an ontological dimension; “stand by” is the prevalent, transient status quo of all human interaction. The digerati of today’s amateur economy experience a “deformation unprofessionelle” – this underlying medical condition originates not only in the pressure of being constantly connected, for the professional consumer (prosumer) on YouTube, eBay, and Etsy it also means the pressure to constantly produce. “Every human being is the author of his own health or disease,” said Buddha, and with millions of online authors populating the Internet, this line has been given new meaning.
Typical syndromes of Morbus Digital might include the following (in alphabetical order):
Blackberry Thumb is a colloquial term for the phenomenon of pain caused by an overuse of mobile devices. The American Society of Hand Therapists issued a consumer alert last year, saying that handheld electronics are causing an increasing amount of carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis. With that warning, the organization included directions on how to properly hold the devices, urging users to take breaks and, if possible, place pillows in their laps so their wrists are in a more upright position. But at airports and on trains and other places where handheld users while away pauses by thumbing their keyboards, there are no pillows in evidence and very few breaks from the tap-tap-click of e-mailing. Blackberry Thumbs are also, more product-neutrally, related to a condition called Trigger Finger or Trigger Thumb.
Blogsomnia deprives frequent bloggers from sleep as they mentally map out future post blog entries while lying in bed at night. Experts speculate that blogsomnia in many instances may be caused by Technoratis, which is a symptom that describes a blogger’s addiction to permanently monitoring the blogosphere via blog search aggregators such as Technorati.
Blogvorce, a term that may soon be used by marriage therapists and divorce lawyers, can occur as the by-product of one spouse’s excessive blogging (often in tandem with the related blogsomnia and technoratis), leading to sexual frustration, isolation, a lack of communication, and subsequent marital disarray.
Buzzlexia is a conditition cause by buzz overload, which signifies the abundant use of buzz words to describe trends and phenomena on the Internet. Buzzlexia causes negative reactions to buzzwords (e.g web 2.0, social software, or user-generated content), and in turn leads to an individual’s refusal to use any of these buzzwords in his own communications. In its most extreme case, Buzzlexia can lead to the partial or total inability to read and write business-related content.
Chattermania depicts the excessive use of Instant Messaging (IM) applications for real-time communications. Propelled by the ease of use and low quality requirements for content and language style, IM’ing has pervaded the work and private sphere. Many users are addicted to online chatting, and studies estimate that US professionals spend 30% of their work hours on IM.
Dysnexia is the fear of disconnectedness, a feeling of virtual loneliness that sets in with the absence of online social presence. Dysnexia typically occurs in locations where consumers lack a WiFi-Internet connection for more than a few hours. It is also used to describe the shock experienced by first-time users of Second Life as they find themselves in an otherwise uninhabited part of the virtual world, with the mission to find the right places and connect with the right people in order to gain the desirable status of being online with a real virtual social life.
M-mail, or mental mail, is a syndrome caused by the omnipresent e-mail format pervading a person’s mind, even if that person is offline. As e-mail has become the primary form of communication for most individuals, the e-mail format has emerged as a cognitive template, urging them to mentally draft e-mails at any time of the day or even during usual sleep hours (see also: Blogsomnia). Experts allege that an increasing number of business professionals now possess a mental draft folder for e-mails that are exactly worded and then stored in one’s mind before they are sent out the next morning from the workplace PC. M-mail may in some cases lead to the problem of Phantom E-Mailing, when an individual mistakenly assumes an e-mail has been sent while, in fact, it has never left his mind.
Prosumer burnout can result from excessive blogging, photo- and videosharing or other forms of user-driven content generation; if these activities occur in addition to the normal worktime, the individual also risks to suffer from a double-burnout, a mutually reincorcing mental and physical cycle of exhaustion that culminates in a total content creation and consumption blockade (TCCB).
The Wiinjury is a subgroup of Wiincidents that may occur with the mis- or overuse of Nintendo’s latest gaming console Wii. Because of its intuitive, physical handling, the remote control Wiimote, which comes with the console, has caused many physical injuries among players.
This is just a quick summary of Morbus Digital, compiled during an acute occurrence of blogsomnia. A more comprehensive list will be available when my wife stops threatening me with blogvorce.
