When explaining the essence of what it means to be digital, you must first understand what being digital is. Being digital means you are made up of discrete symbols which can be broken down by computers and transmitted in different forms, such as audio or visual. The most common form of digital comes in 0’s and 1’s, which is code that a computer is able to read and display the information being digitally transferred to the receiver.
An example of digital is a diamond twill. This can be coded digitally with each weave going on top being a 0 and underneath a 1. You can repeat this process for each strip until you create an image within the weave. This makes it easier to create a twill, with the data creating it perfectly each time. However, with the twill being digitized, you lose the ability to physically feel it. There is no imperfect threads or weaves, it is all perfect because the encoded information is translated exactly as it was sent to the receiver. If it was analog, it would not be stored as data, but rather the entire twill. This leads to the possibility of noise, or imperfections that blocks out the projection of the twill. Digital representation also saves time, as it is nearly instant for the image to be translated from data.Â
Another example is music. If you listen to old music on a record player, you can hear the noise coming through. Even if there is no note being played, you can still hear a static sort-of-noise coming through. The imperfections almost bring charm to the music. However, modern music is digitized and sounds perfect each time you play it. This creates the ease of listening to music, but, you lose a human connection from analog music. It is no longer stored on Vinyl or CDs, rather all on our phones or computers.Â