Cultural Transmission in the Digital Age
We are in a time of global cultural transmission and exchange that we've never before experienced. Why this is important to the survival and evolution of humanity.
Humans having been exchanging cultural elements, including technology for hundreds of thousands of years. But it was often slow and mostly happened through conflict and conquest or trading. Information tools, like language and writing when analog had constraints such as the ability to produce them at scale and transportation technologies too were fairly limited.
As information communication and transportation technologies advanced, so did cultural transmission. Today, cultural elements, from fashion and music to languages, political and economic theories can spread in mere minutes. Cultural transmission at warp speed we might say.
Is this faster speed of cultural transmission in the digital age good or bad? In this article I theorise that it is part of our evolution as a species and may be part of how we survive as a species.
“Technology is not the end product of human design but the very means by which people design and redesign their lives.” — Tim Ingold, Anthropologist
What is Cultural Transmission?
Simplified, cultural transmission is how we pass down traditions, social norms and behaviours within a society. They are influenced by the geography and environment in which we live, including the types of available food, materials for buildings and too making.
Within that are what in anthropology are termed as replication and innovation in cultural transmission. Replication is when we replicate customs, traditions and norms within our own culture. Innovation is when a culture adapts and evolves a culture. Both happen to varying degrees and speeds in all cultures.
The Role of Technology in Cultural Transmission
Humans and technology are inextricably intertwined. Try surviving in the woods in winter without fire and tools like clothes, shelter, an axe and perhaps, hunting tools. It would be rather chilly and you’d be quite hungry.
The printing press was the first communication technology that enabled, along with the power of sail, cultural transmission at a faster speed than ever before. Fast forward to today and we don’t need aeroplanes, hot rods or fast rail to spread cultural elements.
At its roots, culture is about ideas, human creativity and imagination. We socialize these ideas within our societies and turn them into actions. These ideas evolve and become part of our means of survival. Culture is humanity’s response to dealing with the slowness of biological evolution.
The Good and Bad of Rapid Cultural Transmission
Cultural transmission is part of the constant evolution of culture in societies. Little and large changes seep into every culture. When a dominant culture takes over, the downside is that smaller societies may and often do, lose out and can be absorbed. Sometimes they will keep some traditions and social norms, but they become a subset of the dominant culture.
Empires throughout history had a rather nasty habit of doing nasty things to cultures where they took over. At other times, cultures have intermixed, innovated and evolved in interesting and good ways. There is always a tension and mix of good and bad. I’m simplifying here for the purpose of brevity.
Perhaps the biggest downside of such cultural sharing would be a resulting globally beige culture, a global monoculture if you will. Part of what is wonderful about human societies is our cultural variations. From the arts to political and economic systems, architecture and traditions.
Such an outcome is unlikely, but we are reshaping our ideas of what culture means and the role it plays in our survival as a species. Museums are creating virtual spaces that preserve and protect past and current cultural elements. Digital tools are enabling indigenous cultures to share their wonderful aspects with the world.
Language learning platforms are thriving as people seek to learn the language of their cultural heritages or just because they want to. A form of cultural transmission that once was hard to access, expensive and took a long time. When we can share languages, we can share ideas and concepts faster and most importantly, understand one another better.
Cultural Transmission in the Digital Age
We may well say that we are in a phase of rapid cultural innovation in societies around the world. This is unprecedented cultural transmission that our species has never before had to contend with. Information communication technologies (ICTs) are the means by which this happens. The internet and its myriad of connected devices.
On Instagram and TikTok today we can see short videos of how the Masai in Africa live, the tools they use, how they protect their animals from lions and the plants and trees they use for medicine. We can watch Bhangra and bagpipe music and dance come together.
This is a wonderful and amazing time for human creativity. One that not even Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) can create, GAI may replicate, but it cannot create these kinds of cultural mash ups like humans can.
Humans evolve and innovate culturally far more than we\ hold on to “that’s the way it’s always been done.” If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We love to share, to ideate and imagine new ways of being, within our societies and with other societies.
It is all bit messy right now because we are very much in the early stages of this kind of global sharing. It’s why we have issues of cultural misappropriation, especially in fashion. Some elements of societies find intrusions by other cultures challenging and react with hostility. But that has always been the case.
In a world where we are becoming more interconnected, where technologies are speeding up our societies and our definition of realities, how we share and use physical spaces and change our concept of time, our ability to communicate is vital. ICTs enable this to happen. As we have always done before, we will use culture to figure this all out.
Information technologies, including GAI, are simply enablers. It’s humans who figure things out. Yes it’s messy. But as before, we are likely to enter a time where we collaborate, cooperate and coalesce in ways we can’t quite fathom today. What a fascinating time to be alive!