Present Shock: An Introduction

I decided to read a book by Douglas Rushkoff called Present Shock (although we haven't got our official book assignments, I'm being optimistic. I also would want to read this even if it weren't for class, so I suppose it works out). This is different from the topics I have been studying, but it really grabbed my attention as I was looking through the list of books on digital culture we were to pick from. Present Shock is the idea that we have spent the twentieth century preparing for the future, and now it's here. Now that we have advanced technology that allows us to continually progress in it, we suddenly do not have time for it all. Rushkoff puts it this way: "Well, the future's arrived. We live in a continuous now enabled by Twitter, email, and so-called real-time technological shift. Yet this 'now' is an elusive goal that we can never quite reach. And the dissonance between our digital selves and our analog bodies has thrown us into a new state of anxiety: present shock."

The beginning of this talk helped me clear up some ideas about present shock before I start reading the book. Though he is relating present shock to publishing for most of the talk, he explains the main ideas and effects of present shock at the beginning of the speech. He says that present shock is a way of seeing the world. There is a present shock of a lot of different things, and he talks about present shock of digital culture in this book. He discusses the idea of presentism instead of futurism, how our society is no longer leaning toward the future but is now trying to keep up with the present.

As I begin to read this book, I am starting to realize how present shock affects my daily life. By the time I am done blogging for class, designing my magazine spreads on Adobe for another class, using various other technologies for all my other classes, keeping up with my social media, et cetera, et cetera, I don't have time to explore new technologies and truly immerse myself in ways that expand my knowledge of digital culture. I am excited to explore the concepts that Rushkoff brings up in his book that contribute to present shock.