PATTERNS

We are inclined to assume that digital technologies have suddenly revolutionized everything including our relationships our forms of work and leisure and even our democracies in just a few years Armin Nassehi puts forward a new theory of digital society that turns this assumption on its head Rather than treating digital technologies as an independent causal force that is transforming social life he asks what problem does digitalization solve When we pose the question in this way we can see argues Nassehi that digitalization helps societies to deal with and reduce complexity by using coded numbers to process information We can also see that modern societies had a digital structure long before computer technologies were developed already in the nineteenth century for example statistical pattern recognition technologies were being used in functionally differentiated societies in order to recognize monitor and control forms of human behaviour Digital technologies were so successful in such a short period of time and were able to penetrate so many areas of society so quickly precisely because of a pre existing sensitivity that prepared modern societies for digital development This highly original book lays the foundations for a theory of the digital so