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Cultural Transmission in the Digital Age
Humans having been exchanging cultural elements, including technology for hundreds of thousands of years. But it was often slow and mostly happened through conflict and conquest or trading. Information tools, like language and writing when analog had constraints such as the ability to produce them at scale and transportation technologies too were fairly limited.
As information communication and transportation technologies advanced, so did cultural transmission. Today, cultural elements, from fashion and music to languages, political and economic theories can spread in mere minutes. Cultural transmission at warp speed we might say.
Is this faster speed of cultural transmission in the digital age good or bad? In this article I theorise that it is part of our evolution as a species and may be part of how we survive as a species.
“Technology is not the end product of human design but the very means by which people design and redesign their lives.” — Tim Ingold, Anthropologist
What is Cultural Transmission?
Simplified, cultural transmission is how we pass down traditions, social norms and behaviours within a society. They are influenced by the geography and environment in which we live, including the types of available food, materials for buildings and too…
