this society of information and capital most people are obsessed with their diets, their fitness programs, their habits management programs on their smartphones. In this way, we are all actors in a system. Our performance is very important, and it is monitored by ourselves. We are interested in looking good on Instagram and Facebook. We are worried about the image we are transmitting. We are vain managers of our own lives and so we like to have good images. We are actors in networks of services and images. We're always online and we never hang up. We are celebrities and sportsmen, network professionals and digital users, always in line with the world.
We belong to a new generation ― one that has grown, lives and will age with digital devices because we are really in the age of the network. We even went so far that we do not to buy things in stores but we subscribe them. We are all “hirers”, leasers and renters. The reality we deal with is like a long-stay hotel. Nothing or nobody belongs to anyone. Everything is only ours while we pay a monthly fee. And the world is looking at us. We are elite performers. What we do and what we are, what we eat and buy, all our habits are shared on the net. We want at all costs to know the result of appreciation of what we do. We look like children asking for our parents’ attention in a fast-moving, online-friendly world. In this type of life only seems to matter to the majority of the public having fans, to be productive, to manage well the time, to advise others, to be known and being an elite performer in every field.
We are also hostages of a digital ecosystem, of brands and sexy products, and we are interested in everything that happens around us by abdicating offices, companies and schools. We are a legion and we manage legions of fans. We have our channels on YouTube and on Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook. We are eager for people with new ideas. We are connected by network screens, new seductive computing devices. We do not have cable connection. We work with the cloud and we believe we are being evaluated by third parties. We want to have more and more friends. We want to have everything, which is to say that we are elite performers, we are on the network feeling ambitious, social and audacious, shrewd and constantly connected. Once again we realize that we do not know what it is to live without a network, without media ― we use our network screens to feel great on the web and we look forward to having everything we are entitled to. We are engaged in a fashionable virtual reality and we love gadgets that allow us to have the best performance in the great social and technical milieu of the Internet which has turned into a support tool.
The younger generations continue this extension and want the network to become a visual band for their lives. Now we are all critical and social, productive and actors in a system of attractive brands, wishing to know everything and everyone. We are retained in a macro-medium called the Internet and we no longer know what it is to live in an age without media, without users and fans, without content and movies, music and fashion, shopping malls and futuristic vehicles. We love having followers and following personalities online. We like to learn, but we despise books; we have a lot of information, but we do not go to libraries. We are an informed, negligent, proactive and hyperactive species, and we are consumers and informants simultaneously. We are always busy in the network but at the same time we feel dissatisfied, frustrated and depressed. Nothing seems to ever be sufficient. The network has made us to get used to wanting more and doing more. We are homo cypiens,the privileged species of the Net. We feel anxious when we can not get online. In short, for us the network is the main good of necessity as we need to show ourselves and to be connected, we need to know that we can turn on our search engines and find out what we like. We are curious and active. Yet, we have a problem while users, we can not cut calls, we can not hang up. The anxiety is big and so we have to show to the world what we are worth, resulting in an almost daily mission to have to inform the social about our value. We are elite performers and belong to a post-postmodern society based on transparency ― everything is known. We lost for good the big narrative and now our micro-stories, the fantasies of the media and the transmedia films are enough for us. We love being “searchers”. What exists, if it exists, is online. All we have to do is to search, but the problem is that there is a lot of pre-media era data that is not online, and that it stays out, perhaps temporarily, from the network screens.
13. Network Screens
Since 2010, with the coming of the Apple iPad and other similar tablets, we have come to deal with new computing formats heirs of smartphones. Basically, tablets are larger and broader, smartphones. But the great innovation lies in the apps, simple applications of the post-computer era that make life easier for us. This type of digital devices, when empowered by the apps, become post-computer machines that work as TV, radio, press, typewriter functions, among other things. The big difference is that these devices turn digital audiences into digital masses, more passive when compared to those of the computer era, which is associated with smarter classes like programers. Once this said, the big dilemma is that these network screens are, of course, dependent on the “network” and are in a large scale nothing more than simple “screens”. They do not impel us to be big content producers, although they also allow it. The positive aspect is that its portability makes these devices something handy and practical for anyone who wants to be an elite performer in the digital world. They last a long time, are aesthetically attractive and allow us to always be in contact with our public.
The network screen is a dream device and allows someone to always be online for work or leisure, but it also allows the management of our public. Now, once we are all stars, the network screen represents the icing on the cake of post-computer computing. And in this transparent society no one can be alone for a long time. A tension is felt in the air; we need to be connected and to hunt information. We need to know things and check data. We are homo cypiens,the network searching species. We are consumers and informants, but we can fall short of expectations and deal with network screens for media consumption only. That is where the danger lies.
On the other hand, one of the fascinating aspects of network screens is that they are made available to the public as devices of great technical power and versatility. The adult active population uses this type of equipment and computers, but the elderly and the younger who have not used computers have a completely different kind of use. The reality of digital for them is simpler. One touches the screen and it reacts. One can browse the net, buy things on Amazon, one can be on Google, Facebook or Twitter with friends and one can watch movies or TV series on Netflix. In this universe, the only officially productive add-on comes from Microsoft or Apple. Networking screens are more focused on “light” creative audiences, and that's quite noticeable. There's nothing like putting an iPad under your arm and plugging it in whenever you need to. We have digital power with us. We can write, listen to music and draw, make notes or make blogs, re-watch móveis or read emails. It has never been so practical to use a computer. The question is that this gadget is not a computer, but a network screen. The digital screen was merged with the lightweight computer and the Internet. The result is something new ― equipment for the post-computer generation has been created, designed for mobility, portability and convenience in a near future which is already the present.
We always have the Internet with us and we are eager “searchers” of data and born consumers. Everything is paid by credit card or via PayPal. In this system the user has the power to act as a consumer, but on YouTube we can all be creators of audiences. And the younger generation shares everything with everyone, constantly. It does not know what it is to be outside the network and the public domain. Facing this new reality and the younger generations eagerness for audiences and constant “fame”, we all feel immersed in information and pop culture. We have access to an entire information and knowledge society, but we can not run out of money. This network-screen society is a consumer society that increasingly becomes a capital society. Half a dozen brands run the networks we go to. And since that the majority of people only have network screens, they are dependent on them. There is not much to get away from.
As has been debated in this text, or a person is outside the network or inside, or one has access to everything or has not. Being online now is a sign of status. We are stars and audiences that interact with everything and everyone. A post-computer generation will never understand why computers were on sale without Internet access.
