From floppy disk to neural network: the evolution of generational experience in a digital society

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34680/EISCRT-2026-3(16)-225-266

Keywords:

generational experience, technological order, digitalization, prefigurative culture, social codes, intergenerational divide, digital technologies, socio-technical conditions, adaptation, digital society

Abstract

This article examines technogenerational experience in the context of changing technological paradigms, focusing on how the digital environment is reshaping socialization, communication, and the perception of reality. The authors emphasize that generational experience is not merely a biographical phenomenon, but rather the result of the specific sociotechnical conditions in which individuals are shaped. In the context of digitalization, younger generations become purveyors of new norms and technologies, while older generations face the need to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Particular attention is paid to how such differences in generational experience are determined not only by technical skills but also by sociocultural codes associated with specific technological paradigms. Emphasis is also placed on prefigurative culture, which suggests strategies for bridging the generational gap. Young people actively shape and promote new communicative norms, while older generations are forced to adapt, which urgently requires a revision of traditional models of experience transmission. The transformation of the role of each generation in digital society is becoming an important part of social and cultural changes that urgently require reflection.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Sophia Tikhonova, Saratov State University, Saratov, Russia

Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Law, Professor, Professor of the Department of Theoretical and Social Philosophy
e-mail: segedasv@yandex.ru

Dmitry Melnichuk, Saratov State University, Saratov, Russia

Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Associate Professor at the Department of Function Theory and Stochastic Analysis
e-mail: mlnchkdv@gmail.com

References

Amankwah-Amoah, J. (2016). Competing technologies, competing forces:
The rise and fall of the floppy disk, 1971–2010. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 107, 121–129.

Baird, D. (1997). Scientific Instrument Making, Epistemology, and the Conflict Between Gift and Commodity Economies. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 2 (3–4), 127–139.

Barta, K., & Andalibi, N. (2024). Theorizing Self Visibility on Social Media:
A Visibility Objects Lens. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 31 (3), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1145/3660337

Bleier, A., Fossen, B. L., & Shapira, M. (2024). On the role of social media platforms in the creator economy. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 41 (3), 411–426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2024.06.006

Bolin, G. (2016). Media Generations: Experience, Identity and Mediatised Social Change. Stockholm: Routledge.

Bolin, G. (2024). The Metric Mindset: The Social Functionality of Social Media.  In Bolin, G., Ferreira, J., Löfgren, I., & Machado da Silveira, A. C. (eds.), Mediatisations North and South: Epistemological and Empirical Perspectives from Sweden and Brazil. (pp. 35–46). Stockholm: Södertörn University.

Brabazon, T. (2013). Dead media: Obsolescence and redundancy in media history. First Monday, 18 (7), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v18i7.4466

Cohen, J. E. (2023). Infrastructuring the Digital Public Sphere. Yale Journal of Law & Technology, 25, 1–56. https://doi.org/10.15337/yjolt.v25i1.1371

Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2017). The Mediated Construction of Reality. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Glazyev, S. Y. (1990). The economic theory of technical development. Moscow: Nauka Publ. (In Russian).

Herzog, L. (2026). Transnational Worker Solidarity after the Pandemic.
In Karageorgiou, E. & Noll, G. (eds.). The Question of Solidarity in Law and Politics (pp. 159–177). Cambridge University Press.

Jang, J. W., Moharana, S., Carrington, P., & Begel, A. (2024). “It’s the only thing I can trust”: Envisioning large language model use by autistic workers for communication assistance. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–18). York, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3613907

Katzenbach, C., & Ulbricht, L. (2019). Algorithmic governance. Internet Policy Review, 8 (4), 1795–1820. https://doi.org/10.14763/2019.4.1424

Landow, G. P. (2006). Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Lüders, A., Dinkelberg, A., & Quayle, M. (2022). Becoming “us” in digital spaces: How online users creatively and strategically exploit social media affordances to build up social identity. Acta Psychologica, 228, 103643. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103643

Mead, M. (1970). Culture and Commitment: A Study of the Generation Gap. New York: Natural History Press.

Mikhailin, V. Yu., & Tikhonova, S. V. (2026). Media Anthropology: a textbook. Saratov: Science Publ. (In Russian).

Mittelstädt, J. M., Maier, J., Goerke, P., Zinn, F., & Hermes, M. (2024). Large language models can outperform humans in social situational judgments. Scientific Reports, 14, 27449. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-68397-9

Nikunen, K. (2018). From Irony to Solidarity: Affective Practice and Social Media Activism. Studies of Transition States and Societies, 10 (2), 10–21. https://doi.org/10.58036/stss.v10i2.655

Park, J. S., O’Brien, J. C., Cai, C. J., Morris, M. R., Liang, P., & Bernstein, M. S. (2023). Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior. Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, 1121–1130. https://doi.org/10.1145/3586183.3606763

Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. New York: Basic Books.

Schwarz, O. (2021). Sociological Theory for Digital Society: The Codes that Bind Us Together. Polity Press.

Shapin, S., & Schaffer, S. (2011). Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Taneja, H., Wu, A. X., & Edgerly, S. (2017). Rethinking the Generational Gap
in Online News Use: An Infrastructural Perspective. New Media & Society,
20 (5), 1792–1812. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817734547

Theophanidis, P., & Thibault, G. (2016). Media Hysteresis: Persistence Through Change. Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 12, 8–23. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.12.01

Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Van Dijck, J., Poell, T., & de Waal, M. (2018). The Platform Society: Public Values in a Connective World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. URL: https://www.academia.edu/38605333/Van_Dijk_Poell_and_de
_Wall_The_Platform_Society_Public_Values_in_a_Connective_World_2018_ (accessed: 27.02.2026).

Downloads


Abstract views: 20

Published

2026-09-26

How to Cite

Tikhonova, S., & Melnichuk, D. (2026). From floppy disk to neural network: the evolution of generational experience in a digital society. Experience Industries. Socio-Cultural Research Technologies, 3 (16), 225–266. https://doi.org/10.34680/EISCRT-2026-3(16)-225-266

Issue

No. 3 (16) (2026): Experience industries. Socio-Cultural Research Technologies

Section

Horizons