Day 28　 "見えない社会"が生み出した、もうひとつの文化　The Culture Raised by the Internet

Day 28 Another Human World Born from an "Invisible Society"

The Culture Raised by the Internet

Before we explore the relationship between cybersecurity and culture, we must first turn our eyes to what may be the youngest culture in human history.

That is Cyber Culture.

And here, one fundamental question emerges,

Does culture even exist in cyberspace?

I answer without hesitation:

Yes. Absolutely.

And it is still evolving today.

We talk about national cultures, organizational cultures, and team cultures but we have paid almost no attention to the culture of cyberspace itself.

Yet without understanding cyber culture, we cannot understand security culture. This is something I have felt firsthand throughout my career.

Today, we will explore:

• Where cyber culture came from

• How it emerged

• How researchers define it

The Origins of Cyber Culture

The evolution of the internet has not just built technology- it has shaped values, behaviors, and worldviews.

Cyber culture did not appear suddenly. The history of the internet itself has been molding how humans think and act.

It is the co-evolutionary trail of humanity and the digital world.

Cyber culture was born not only from technology, but from the stories of the people living within it.

A Brief Timeline of the Digital Shift

1970s - The Birth of Connection
Email, Apple, Microsoft. The idea of "being connected" planted the cultural seed.

1980s - Toward a World of Shared Information
PCs, LANs, the GUI revolution. Information moved from isolated to shared.

1990s - The Internet Explosion
WWW, Google, Wi-Fi. A new norm emerged: "You can find anything if you search."

2000s - The Era of Smartphones and Social Media
Facebook, YouTube, iPhone. Humans became beings connected to the world 24/7.

2010s - Cloud Becomes Everyday Life
The internet became the foundation of daily living.

2016-Now - The Age of IoT and AI
The world inside the internet began driving the world outside it.

Cyber culture is not a by-product of technology--
it is the crystallization of the choices humans have made in the digital world.

How Researchers Describe Cyber Culture

Elm (2007)

Cyber culture is:

"Shared values and perspectives in online spaces that guide how people act and interact."

In other words:
The invisible rules that determine

• how we behave

• how we communicate

Prof. Kim

Cyber culture is the entire cultural sphere created by online communities:

SNS, gaming, message boards, creator culture-- all of these are part of cyber culture.

Ardevol (2005)

Cyber culture has multiple faces:

• a new cultural model

• culture born on the internet

• culture expressed through digital creations

• culture as a media form

Norris (2001)

The internet amplifies existing cultures. Music lovers join music communities, political minds join political forums-- the internet magnifies interests.

But I see it this way

Adults enter the internet with their existing culture-- and the internet strengthens it.

But children and young people are different.For those whose cultural identity is not yet fixed, the internet itself becomes the foundation of culture.

Values shaped by SNS, gaming communities, streaming culture, anonymity-- these form the culture they grow up inside.

The internet is not just a place. It is the soil where new values are cultivated.

So, what is Cyber Culture?

Cyber culture is the record of humanity's desires, creativity, conflict, and collaboration born from the digital world and the way humans choose to live in a world without time or space.

It is:

• Without borders

• Without time

• Across generations

• Beyond language

• Faster than any organization or society

And sometimes, it wields more power than the physical world.

SNS shapes public opinion. Online communities shape values. Digital spaces even shape identity and judgment.

Cyber culture is not a technical by-product. It is a reality.

And I believe:

One mission of cybersecurity is to protect the safety and trust of this new cultural world.

Tomorrow, we'll explore the intersection of cybersecurity and culture.

References

Elm, M. S. (2007). Understanding and Studying Internet Culture(s): hybridity and interdisciplinarity. Nordicom Review, 29, 85-90.

Kim, Son-Ung. (n.d.). Sociology Index. Retrieved from http://sociologyindex.com/index.htm

Ardevol, E. (2005). Cyberculture. Anthropological Perspectives of the Internet, Retrieved from http://www.media-anthropology.net/index.php/View-document-details/Ardevol-Cyberculture.-Anthropological-Perspectives-of-the-Internet.html

Norris, Pippa. (2001). Digital Divide. Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide, 3-25. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139164887