Digital

Abstract

In the early twenty‐first century, digital technologies became increasingly pervasive but also infrastructural. Now deeply embedded in the workings of contemporary society, they are implicated in various social transformations, from micro to macro levels. This entry highlights five layers of digital transformation. First, it considers technologies of selfhood reshaping norms of self‐expression and identity formation and disrupting the spatiotemporal contours of everyday life. Second, it considers the transformation of social connections (and fissures) in the digital age, from new forms of political activism and antagonism to communicative shifts within bonds of friendship and intimacy. Third, it considers new forms of nonhuman agency, from algorithms to robots. Next, it discusses digital environments, from self‐contained virtual realities to the digital augmentations of physical – including urban and domestic – space. Finally, it acknowledges issues of digital power raised by these shifts: new concentrations of economic and social power exercised by digital corporations lead to controversies surrounding governance and future directions for digital capitalism.