Digital culture has had its share of criticisms, and it’s so ubiquitous now that people forget it’s a relatively new phenomenon. It’s a phenomenon that Virginia Heffernan, author of Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art, is perpetually excited by. She can even remember a time before the World Wide Web, when she would eagerly go to “play the computer” before the word Internet was in the wider culture’s vocabulary.

The digital culture is often dismissed as inane and low culture, and Heffernan said one comment she hears often is: “How can the Internet be art when Twitter is so angry?” To which she responds, “What do you think art is?”

Heffernan sat down with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during the Hadoop Summit at the San Jose Convention Center in California.

The push back of anti-digital culture

As digital culture expands, however, there is a strong anti-digital culture movement on the rise.

“Digital culture has jacked up the value of un-digitized experiences,” said Heffernan. Now people work to stay off their cellphones or Facebook as long as they can. There is a visible movement toward making your own products, going to live shows, and even vinyl records. There’s even so-called “punk tech,” where some youth are rejecting iPhones in favor of flip phones.

Another new service lets you pay $30 per month to go to the theater, based off the Netflix model but instead bringing you out into the public again and face-to-face with real people. This anti-digital culture also excites Heffernan, and she revealed that it is the subject of her next book.

Parenting in the digital age

Other than the youth themselves, parents also often have an anti-digital leaning, setting things like time limits and warning children about using digital devices too much. Heffernan suggested that instead of this wary tone, parents should go on the adventure with their kids and model good behaviors.

She added that going on this journey helped her to “learn how to distinguish reality from online avatar, a lesson we all need to learn.”

Watch the entire video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Hadoop Summit US.

Photo by SiliconANGLE