Attachment and Digital Technologies
From my last statement “ Digital age changed the nature of our attachment to possessions. ”, I explored through the question that can digital information give the attachment to people as physical items can.
The comparison that I listed out are mainly about the senses of interact. Physical objects can serve all the 5 senses ; sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch, while digital information can only serves hearing and sight. But I think digital has benefit of recording moments through moving image and sounds.
I added another question that why do people attach to objects (and some don’t). The researches say that they are mostly from one’s childhood.
From my research, there are generally 2 types of parents ; keeper and discarder. If the parents are keepers, their children more tend to be attached to their stuff. Some experts refer to children’s attachment objects as transitional objects because it is believed they aid the transition to independence. The example of what they call transition to independence is like when parents use objects involving co-sleeping and feeding. This also called attachment parenting.
Possession is like extension of the self, our possessions express our identity. Of course, we still aspire to express ourselves but the rise of digital technologies gives us various alternative ways to express. We can simply share what we like on our homepage to show our preferences, no need to purchase anymore. However, 5 senses of human is essential in order to respond the needs. The sense of holding an object in our hands and calling it our own will be something uniquely pleasant.
