Digitality is the condition of living within a digital culture. It poses the idea that today, technology and media are not just a part of life, rather they are life, and we live within them. The great, technicolour tangle of transmissions, captured by Sienna Moth in this edition’s cover art, is a testament to how broadly and deeply these phenomena shape our worlds.
The first ever social media platform turns twenty-seven in May, making it older than the average undergraduate. In this edition, Honi Soit explores what it’s been like growing up with screens all these years, and where we are accelerating towards in the future.
On page eight, we explore Silicon Valley and its conviction of big-tech colonialism with Audhora Khalid. Eliza Crossley then introduces the clickworker trade and raises crucial questions around ethical AI. On pages twelve and thirteen, Imogen Sabey shares her life without a SIM card while Marc Paniza analyses the hidden meaning of Spotify Wrapped.
This edition also trades in musings on dumbphones, Wattpad, virtual reality, and iPad babies. In the feature, I explore my own anxieties surrounding self-curatorship on Instagram and the crafting of digital egos for Sydney’s young creatives.
As you eat through these pages, I urge you to put your phone on silent, or throw it out a window, and listen fully to the quiet of the pre-technology entertainment lying in your hands.
Yours,
Lotte
Companion Piece: Sienna Moth
USELESS BALL, digital media, 2025.
“I primarily do digital art in my free time but since starting at USyd, I’ve unexpectedly become very immersed in making sculptural works. I’m very interested in debates surrounding technology and humanity, like the ethics and ramifications of AI. In particular, ‘USELESS BALL’ is a lighthearted representation of the negative effects of language model chatbots on the brain’s development and how reliance on them diminishes the ability to think critically.
The STUPID fluffy ball sits USELESSLY in the middle of a room. It sits like a soft LUMP. It doesn’t know that the wires around it pulse with SOMETHING. An entity? Something less soft, probably. Yet, the fluffy ball contributes NOTHING. It just consumes and consumes, staring at ME like it’s MY FAULT! It can’t even MOVE. It sits there surrounded by screens, buttons, sound systems, and various technological apparatus. It’s BEHIND on RENT. Someone, PLEASE tell it to get it together!”
Sienna Moth is a third-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Visual Arts.
