2001: A cyberspace odyssey: an interpretation of the Internet's impact on worldviews, religions, selves, communities, and cities

Abstract

The title of this thesis is at once grandiose and ironic in its reference to the 1968 Science Fiction film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1968. Director: Stanley Kubrick) The reasons why such a title is suitable for this thesis will hopefully be made clear throughout this work, but delving into some of these now will give a good introduction to the main themes of this work. Firstly, we are living in a post-millennial age, and the importance of technology is such that no aspect of our existence can be said to be free from its grasp. Conception and Death have been 'deconstructed' by medical science, social behaviours explained (or at least explored) by psychology and as its fellow social sciences, the mystical 'reduced' to various scientific causes, and communication (in some instances) standardised into bits and bytes on computer screens. The realisation of our dependence on technology manifested itself in the mass-anxiety of the late nineteen nineties when the year 2000 ('Y2K') was viewed by many as being the likely date for some degree of catastrophe, if not the end of the world as we knew it. Rather than an Act of God, however, we felt this would be our own techno-Apocalypse, caused by our misuse of technology, particularly computers. The 'Y2K bug' was our most highly-publicised failing. Computer programs written before the late nineties used only a two-digit dating system recording the year as 99 rather than 1999. Thus, when the time came for 1999 to become 2000, records would once again begin at 00, causing havoc for databases such as official public records banks. While the impact for home computer users would have been insignificant, media coverage of the potentially disastrous consequences of the failure of computer controlled public amenities, such as sanitation, electricity, banking, transport and even defence, meant that everyone was well aware of the looming problem. While the new millennium arrived relatively without incident, our awareness that technology had become an integral part of our lives was certainly raised.