From being digital to becoming a digital humanist

 From being digital to becoming a digital humanist

By Dr. Gilberto Hernández Quirós

UNA Nicoya TEFL Academic Professor

 

The interpretation of printed words on paper or published digitally on websites, blogs or soccial media may pose a situation where we question the veracity and fidelity of such data or the intentionality behind it.

Converting pixels into letters, sentences and paragraphs are part of the digital representation in times of being the most actively digital in history due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According the the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), the comprehension and interpretation of digital information goes beyond superficiality.  

Indeed, we are presented with a landscape of digital information, but there has not been a truthful surge of interest for digital humanities, which is an umbrella term for new and fast-moving developments across a range of topics.

Among those topics should be the study of social media and its positive and negative impact on users who may be employing it as a symbol manipulator to express their frustrations, joy or sense of achievement, successful or botched endeavors undertaken.  After all, the importance of human association is vital provided we adhere to ethical concerns related to the environment, social justice, and, above all, emphasize the importance of human issues. 

In actual fact, technology and  humanities do have a history of interaction that requires discussion and innate willingness to understand in views of avoiding robotic and empty interactions to the point of being a machinist and not a humanist.

Gartner has defined digital humanism as "the notion that people are the central focus in the manisfestation of digital businesses and digital workplaces".  Being digital is not enough; however, all enterprises, companies, schools of education and businesses must embrace digital humanism and use technology to redefine the way people achieve their goals and enable them to achieve things as holistically as possible.  

Likewise, it is essential to remember the branches of humanities which consist of languages, the arts, literature, philosophy religion and history.  We cannot digitalize feelings and emotions, but we all enhance those bits and atoms with the beauty and power of the branches mentioned above.

Furthermore, take the term virtualization as an example of a word that was originally related to mere numbers, codes and letters.  It was synonymous to abstract processes within a computer system aided by hardware and software.  Nonetheless, the way most people -or at least the "info-rich"- conceptualize virtualization quite differently now.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered unimaginable changes in the way we interact through virtual platforms, websites or apps.  We have seen children project themselves quite happily -in the new normal- to celebrate historical events such as the Annexation of Nicoya to Costa Rica, Independence Day or Mother's Day to name a few.  These virtual events have been characterized by being humans collectively and remember that we are the human race that depends on mutual interaction, kindness, benevolence and respect regardless of differences which ultimately do enrich us with great diversity.

To conclude, I must say that the layers and quality of digital textuality that we produce, create, customize and divulge need to be overtly characterized by the application of information science to the humanities.  Our digital presence (Shiva 1993 and 2013), the control of our identity, the representation of our minds and our most profound desires for continuous improvement all depend on us as humanists and not mere and sheer machinists.