I wasn’t really sure what to expect when my friend Joseph Price invited me to a play he wrote, “This Digital Life: Basic Instructions for Coping with the 21st Century.” I had a hard time imagining a play about technology. The description is as follows:
Sometimes, late at night, do you Google yourself? Have you ever sent yourself an email from the future? Three short plays explore life, death, and infamy in the age of Second Life and Wikipedia.
I have to say I really enjoyed it. I’d describe the show as a semi-satirical commentary on the current state of technology and Web 2.0. It’s about how all of this is affecting our lives.
We may get excited by all of these new technologies but whats underlying is human relationships. It’s those relationships which are important not the technology.
Much like after reading Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur (which i’ll write about soon), it got me thinking about how can we raise up a generation that responsibly uses the power of Web 2.0 not to stoke the flames of their own narcissism but to change the world.
The play incorporates technology which is really interesting. Despite a few hiccups, he was able to pretty successfully integrate AIM, YouTube, and even Google Spreadsheets into the play.
Overall, I’d recommend people go see this play. It has a pretty short run so go order tickets right now.
I may go again and take a group of friends. If you’re interested in going too, drop me a comment.
Other Bloggers:
- MetroBlogging DC: Capitol Fringe: This Digital Life
- The Washington City Paper: Hip Shot: ‘This Digital Life’
Oatmeal Stout - Justin Thorp's blog 
Nice post! I’m curious about what exactly the knowledge = power equation looks like in a world of Web 2.0? Is it the people who can filter the “good” and the “bad”? Who shapes those norms? How can they change? Because, I think Keen’s thesis is largely off….unless you’re a person can’t filter the information. In that world, it may just be on-point.
Yeah, we now have these amazing tools. I just don’t think we know how to use them. Instead of becoming hopeless neophytes, we need to look at how we can proceed in a way which is going to produce something that is beneficial to society, other wise we’re going to raise up generations of very narcissistic people.
We have to get past the “cat on a ceiling fan” YouTube videos and look at creating art, movies, music, and writing which is challenge and transform our culture. I think its there and more of it is coming.
Thanks for the review. I think I’ll be going to tonight’s staging.
Glad to hear the play was good, I’d definitely be up for seeing it. I agree with your points about using The New Web ™ to help better the world instead of to feed our own egos.
Commercial or non-profit, organizations have an abundance of tools at their disposal to really help get their message out. And the best part is, most of them are free!