Traversing the infrastructures of digital life

Abstract

In this chapter I turn my attention to the infrastructural qualities inherent to the experience living with contemporary digital technologies. Digital technologies from smartphones to bitcoin, rely on infrastructural networks from undersea cables, to the hundreds of communications satellites that orbit the earth, radio communications masts, fibre-optic cables, local Wi-Fi transmitters, and mobile data communications standards. Communications protocols and programming languages also infra-structure technological devices, making the inter-operability of particular platforms possible and creating the basis for contemporary ways of communicating and socialising. Moreover, not only do digital devices rely on communications infrastructures, but infrastructures of other kinds from energy grids to global logistics are undergoing their own processes of digitisation. Digital infrastructure includes then, not only the wires and cables that support mobile and computer communication but also the integration of sensors, databases of measurements, and real-time data analytics into buildings, motorways, ticketing services, fast food delivery, taxi services and more. Digital infrastructures in one, other or both of these senses are now an inherent part of contemporary life for most people in the world and their effects on the reorganisation of social life have been profound. These digital infrastructures have provided the grounds for structural transformations in social relations, for what it is possible to know, for communication, mobility, kinship, and access to resources.