Heading for the Digital Wilderness

This weekend I am fortunate enough to be getting some time out from the business of life and taking a few days away to head into the northern wilderness to do a spot of fishing...not sure how many fish there will be caught, but I haven't yet been on a fishing trip that hasn't resulted in a number of tales to tell...but as I anticipate this trip, I can't help but think that I am also about to head not just into the natural wilderness, but into the digital wilderness as well...
You see, where it is that I am going is away from everywhere...no hope of a signal on my mobile carrier there.....so there is no way that I will be able to stay connected with the digital world.  O.k. if you have the right equipment, maybe you can still be connected....but I don't and thus I won't.

In considering this, it has brought me again to the point where I must continue to disagree with those who present a false dichotomy between "the real world" and "the digital world".  As I go into a space without signal, I cannot help but see this space as somehow no longer how the world should be.  My expectation now is that the world should be able to contact me....regardless of my physical location....not only that the world should be able to contact me, that I don't need to be isolated from the events of the world, just because I am in an isolated location...the real world has changed.....

These aren't "digital" feelings or expectations, they are very real. 

I saw it again in a news program I was watching recently, where after talking about what was happening in a digital space, the newsreader segued to the next item by the throw away line "Now back in the real world".....as if the article that had been previously shown existed in some sort of space that was "pretend"....

Sure the digital space is different....but I think it is incredibly unhelpful to refer to this space as something other than real....

it's no less real to be bullied in this space
it's no less real to be drawn into sexual frivolity in this space
it's no less real to face rejection in this space
it's no less real to rejoice in this space
it's no less real to wear a mask in this space

I think McLuhan's "the extension of man" tag line from his Understanding Media book is a good corrector of our thinking....only when this space is no longer an "extension" of us....of who we are.....of our hearts and minds.....does it become something other than real....and I don't think that is likely to occur anytime soon....if ever...