Bright Lights, Blind Spots

The revolutionary dimension of technological developments is all too often placed in the foreground, painting a picture of a future we can hardly imagine, let alone perceive. This book emphasises the evolutionary dimension of developments, and how we take small steps. How certain underlying, invariable aspects survive hype after hype, and have their own rhythm or longue durée. It is the search for where change meets inertia. Progression is a balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar. The essays bundled in this book have as a leitmotiv this attention to how progression is a matter of locating the small steps we can take and the invariables that lie beneath developments that stimulate or hinder certain big steps forward. It concentrates on the zone of proximal development, to use the term of Vygotsky. This collection of essays represents a personal view of the area where psychology, media, technology, and culture meet in the context of technological and social developments. These crossroads are addressed through topics such as digital identities, interactive media, the museum visitor in a digital world, and growing up in a digital society.