The Importance Of Digital Life

What is the meaning of a ‘digital life’? Digital life (or digital presence) could mean several different things. It could mean when one frequently goes on his or her phone and scrolls through social media, checks his or her email, or it could mean when one goes online shopping. Digital life is often used in everyday life. Depending on the user, digital life can be perceived in various ways. Prountzou (2014) states that “[people] use the Internet in multiple ways, be it for online banking, buying goods, socializing, communicating and researching” (Prountzou, 2014). Technology, in fact, is a tool of digital life and is implemented on a day to day basis as one must always rely on it in any shape or form. To what extent is user participation in the digital sense affected in everyday life? Politically, how is digital life being utilized? The following literature of review presents the findings of digital life and its relationships with the user, governments encouraging more engaging online citizen

Rainie, Smith, Schlozman, Brady, and Verba (2012) present that social media is starting to become a feature of political and civil engagement for many Americans. Rainie concludes this finding from analyzing a survey that asked users about civic engagement using social networking sites like Twitter. They found that 60% of American adults use social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, 39% of them have done at least one of eight civic or political activities with social media. The demographic that uses social media for civic activities the most were younger social media users that ranged from age 18-29 years old. They concluded from the survey that younger users were more likely to post their own thoughts about issues and encourage others to take political action while older users were more likely to stay