Chapter 17: Imagined Worlds, Emerging Cultures

We live in an age in which mobile technology keeps us constantly con-nected, and where ubiquitous computing enables quick access to a treasure house of knowledge. It is hard to imagine a world in which there are no digital technologies, and this is acutely the case within the education systems of Western industrialized nations. Technology has enriched and enlivened modern life, with mobile technologies enabling us to keep in touch constantly and access information where and when we require it (Ager, 2003). The rapid evolution of social networking spaces on the Internet has facilitated massive and rapid multiple connections between students across a spectrum of intensities, from the superficial to the closely intimate (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007). Technology may now be an indispensable component of modern life, but it generates its own problems, even within familiar contexts. Many of society’s long established mores, conventions and rules are being challenged, undermined, and even supplanted as a result of mass interest and engagement with the virtual world. We locate these experiences in “imagined worlds'” due to the nature of the virtuality. It is often the fantasy component and the freedom to let one’s imagination run riot that first attracts adherents. Imagined worlds facilitate a number of experiences that could never be conceived as possible in the real world, but they also mediate familiar experiences. One familiar feature of the human experience—friend-ship—is increasingly mediated through new technologies and social spaces. For some, even this fondamental human experience may need to be reconceptualized.