Creative Destruction and Cultural Lag in the Digital Age

Recently, there has been renewed interest in the two ideas of “creative destruction” and “cultural lag” both brought together in this article to analyze cutting-edge changes in the digital world, especially as they relate to consumption. Several studies have documented that we are increasingly living in a hybridized environment of swiftly evolving devices and technologies. Within this context, cultural lag refers both to the conflict between digital versus material consumerist developments, as well as to the subsequent delays in social understanding. Creative destruction describes the introduction of new forms of consumption that eliminate existing ones. However while all destruction tends to lead to cultural lag, this is especially true in the case of creative destruction. The article will also suggest at the end that not all destruction, especially, but not exclusively, as it relates to the environment, is necessarily creative. It can also be mainly, if not exclusively and totally, destructive.