Introduction
Digital technologies during the last two decades has been growing rapidly making it one the new technologies with highest adoption rate. In 1990,, there were only 100 million personal computers, but this number has surged into 1.4 billion in 2010 showing rapid growth. Mobiles phones has also increased from just 10 million in 1990 to more than 5 billion in 2010 (databank.worldbank.org). Computers came into being the world’s revolution after the advent of the internet. Computers are about to replace books which has been a vital source of getting information worldwide, computers currently occupy a role not only in the developed countries but also in the third world countries. The internet was developed by the US Defense Department and was only restricted to the research community. The capabilities of the internet to facilitate sharing of information across organizations and to enable people interact at a lower cost increased demand for its adoption in other sectors. The impact of the internet has been felt virtually in all sectors of life such as a business operation, entertainment, social interactions, shopping, different services and many other sectors. The internet has provided users with an opportunity to use it with identifying themselves or even meet with other groups who have similar interests and values. Digitization is one of the foremost internet phenomenon where information has been converted into digital form. Digitization is just the process of converting material that is analog form into digital form (Holland and Naudé 2004). This concept has enabled organizations to disseminate information and collaborate interactively using computers without concerns of geographic limitation. Some of the capabilities that are enabled by the internet include e-commerce, e-banking, e-business, e-government, e-learning and virtual libraries. This means that there is reduced interaction between people as interaction with computers increases. The government and entrepreneurs are adopting this mode of communication and service delivery to its citizens and customers respectively (Grewal et al. 2001). The internet has enabled users to get services at the click of the mouse without interaction with others. This has raised the greatest concerns among psychologists about social effect of digitization with isolation being the key issue. The internet is a technology that has overcome distance challenges and has been able to reach many people concurrently. Researchers have pointed out that the internet has significantly impacted on the self-expression, affiliation and completion of individuals in the society.
Process of digitization
Digitization has been widely studied from 1960s onwards in the concept of computerization of business activities (Kaufman 1966). According to Brynjolfsson and Hitt 1998, digitization has been researched by many scholars in terms of how they organizations has been using it and the productivity of information technology. During the early days of digitization, inter-organizational information systems (IOS) had not been considered. However, IOS is currently regarded the key pillar in digitization between two organization, it includes the hardware, software, guidelines, regulations and network infrastructure (Barrett and Konsynski, 1982). Digitization came in to the existence as a result of development of multimedia technology where there was a need to represent drawings, video and photographs in a digital form. Digitization dates back in 1960, when the images of the moon surface were digitized by Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California for televising. According to Digital Imaging (1997), digitization has also been a greater need in military intelligence, urban planning, and medicine. Burdick (1997) defines digital images as a representation of elements in a discrete array or pixels which represent numbers. Digitization of information is a process that include; selection of the information to digitize with proper reasons of why they should be digitized. The selection of hardware and software requirements and the mode of connection to digitized materials whether internet or intranet for digitization is another process. Digitization also requires technical staff to work, in technical environments, to set up and maintain the materials.
Impact of Digitization
Digitization has been explosive in many sectors leading to challenges of managing its negative impact in the society. However, measuring the impact of digitization to a society is complicated because there are no standard metrics for doing so. Many studies have been looking at the inequality level in society as they measure the impact of digitization. Inequality is a significant problem in constrained and emerging economies making it more complex to measure the impact of digitization.
There are no proper metrics to measure the performance of digitized content in the society. Digitization process mainly focuses on access and building strong infrastructure leaving out the metrics on the assimilation of the technology in society. There is the lack of tools by the government to measure the effects of mass adoption of digital technologies and its application in the society. This way, the economy is becoming more ambitious in further development of ICT sector. Many articles have alluded the ability of digitization to globalize information sharing. It is a reality that digitization also results into isolation of location. Increased digitization in our lives has increased isolation of people. This can be demonstrated using the metrics that are used to measure performance of digitization.
Ubiquity is a matrix showing how consumers and enterprises have access to digital services and applications. This means that digitization should be universally accessed by all people. The lack of such access means that some consumers and enterprises are isolated. Government is now going digital with e-government platform for offering services. Those who can access the internet and other digital platforms will not have access to government services. Digital technologies have, therefore, isolated a group of individuals who cannot access them. Figure one further illustrates digitization stages and how countries are grouped according to the level of digitization. Constrained stage shows third world countries while advance stage shows developed countries.
Fig. 1 Stages of digitization 2010 levels
The graph above shows digitization stages which is grouped into four. Constrained economies have a digitization scale less than 25. These economies are characterized by inadequate access and affordability of the services since they are expensive and are reserved for the few. Reliability is a challenge that emerging economies face because they have not implemented enough capacity to run digital technologies. Transition al is another group of digital level where with a score of 30 to 40. Information can be accessed in a reliable, ubiquitous and affordable manner. Such countries are only facing challenges with speed, skills and usability. Advanced stage is for developed countries with a digitization score above 40. Digital access is unusually high with effective usability systems to get services.
Affordability is another measure of digitization. The question here is, what is the cost of digital services to average consumers in the society? The extent to which such services are priced making them available to as many people as possible is a challenge. People become isolated if services that were freely accessed become priced. Some services require expensive resources to deploy and operate and run them. These, in turn, impact on the prices of the service. Reliability is also another factor that has isolated many people in the society. The quality of available services differs based on the location and countries. Developed countries have better access to digital services compared to underdeveloped ones.
The speed of accessing information is extremely crucial, if the infrastructure is not well developed digital information access is lower in terms of real life speed. Internet and most of the digital services have been designed in a way that they suite the original countries. These technologies were prominent in North America hence English language was and is currently the most used on the internet. This has been referred to as ‘war of words’. Localization of digital information to fit into a given culture is the challenge. Cultural diversity is one of the concepts that have not been addressed while digitizing information. This results into usability issues. The ease of use of digital content where local ecosystems are incorporated, into the application, to boost adoption of these services is a challenge. This has further isolated people from accessing such services.
Digital technology services in some instances are complex hence users require skills to use such services. Traditional services, however, complex they are were simplified by technical staff assisting users to access them. The ability of users to integrate digital services into their lives and business has isolated many people from accessing digital services. It means that only those with the skills and knowledge can access digital services while those without the skills are denied such services because they are not available manually.
Effects of internet use on close relationships
The impact of digital content to close relationship has been a subject matter for many scholars. The quest is to find out how digital content has affected the way people interact with each other in a real life. Fiske (1992) defines social relationship as the relationship which is an instrument of extrinsic, nonsocial ends of individual desires. He further suggests a model that explains how humans interact with each other. There is a strong evidence that supports the fact that the internet has affected social relationship. There are four elementary models that can explain the social relation of people; communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching and market pricing. Kraut et al., (1998) on their study of HomeNet project conclude that the internet has led into negative results for an individual user. One example is loneliness and depression which causes them to neglect their close relationships. Nice (2001), points out that the internet is a limited resource that is acquired at a cost. Hine (2000) points out that online interaction are totally different from offline social interaction hence poor social order and group efforts are evident to internet users. Many CMC means such as blogs, instant messages, and social web among others are widely adopted by internet users. The cost is both monetary and sacrifices of other activities. Users who spend more than ten a week on the internet have problems with their friends and families since they do not find time to be with them (Kraut et al., 1998).
Racism and prejudice
There are contents on the internet that are negative and abusive to human kind. Racist publish negative information that is damaging about other race because the internet is not regulated by anyone. Such moves isolate communities or race on the basis of negative content. These negatively affect the social life of those abused and even other race that believes they are superior to others. We can clearly say that abusive video and text messages on the internet cannot be regulated by any government since people always find their way around any regulation.
Some countries have come up measures to curb such activities. Filtration and censorship have been applied in countries such as China. If a country decides to block content from a given country or region, it means that they are isolating it from the digital network.
In conclusion, digitization has many positive impacts in the society including quick access to services which has improved economies of many countries. However, the more we digitize things in our lives; many people are becoming more and more isolated. Isolation occurs when people cannot access the same services equality. This has been accelerated by factors such as availability of digital services, reliability, affordability, need for skills and usability of digital services and applications. Social life has also been impacted since people are communicating virtually hence forming virtual communities. This has influenced the way people relate in the real society. There are many challenges and effects from the internet such as name calling or lack of expression during interaction since computers lack these features. Families are now busy on the internet instead of spending quality time with their loved ones. There is a greater risk of addiction to the internet. It is a common phenomenon to see people rather consulting virtual friends concerning serious decisions in life than ask their partners. Looking back at the early days of internet such issues like the effects of psychological well-being, the formation, and maintenance of individual relationships, group memberships and social identity, the work place and community involvement can be examined. It is clear that digitization is drifting people apart more than anticipated.
References
Bargh JA. 2002. Beyond simple truths: the human-Internet interaction. J. Soc. Issues 58(1):1—8
Bargh JA, McKenna KYA, Fitzsimons GM. 2002. Can you see the real me? Activation and expression of the ‘true self’ on the Internet. J. Soc. Issues 58(1):33--48
Barrett, Stephanie and Konsynski, Ben. 1982. “Inter organizational information sharing systems,” MIS Quarterly, 6 (special issue), 93-104.Blumler J, Katz E. 1974. The Uses of Mass Communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Burdick, Howard, E. 1997. “ Digital Imaging”. McGraw-Hill,
Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Hitt, Lorin. 1998. “Beyond the productivity paradox,” Communications of the ACM, 41 (8), 49-55.
Kamel, S. 2009. “The Evolution of the ICT Sector in Egypt: Partnership4Development.” Communications of the IBIMA 10 (2009): 39–49. Available at http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/CIBIMA/volume10/v10n7.pdf.
Katz, R. 2011. “The Contribution of Broadband to Economic Development.”In V. Jordán, W. Peres, and H. Galperin, eds., FastTracking the Digital Revolution: Broadband for Latin America and the Caribbean. Santiago: Economic Comisión for Latin America and the Caribbean. 49–79.
Kiesler S, Siegel J, McGuire T. 1984. Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication. Am. Psychol. 39:1129--34
Kaufman, Felix 1966. “Data Systems That Cross Company Boundaries” Harvard Business Review, (January-February), 141.
Kraut R, Kiesler S, Boneva B, Cummings J, Helgeson V, et al. 2002. Internet paradox revisited. J. Soc. Issues 58(1):49--74
Morgan Stanley. 2009. The Mobile Internet Report. Available at http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/mobile_internet_report122009.html. McKenna KYA, Green AS, Gleason MJ. 2002. Relationship formation on the Internet: What’s the big attraction? J. Soc. Issues 58(1):9—31
Nie NH, Erbring L. 2000. Internet and Society: A Preliminary Report. Stanford Inst. Quant. Study Soc., Stanford, CA
WITSA (World Information Technology and Service Alliance). 2010. Digital Planet 2010. Vienna, VA: WITSA.
Zita, K. 2005.“Malaysia Telecom Brief.” Network Dynamics Associates LLC. Available at http://www.ndaventures.com/Malaysia_Telecom_Brief.pdf.
