For more than forty years, the UNIV Forum has been attracting students from all over the world to Rome with the aim of providing a place for meeting and multidisciplinary dialogue on a common theme.  Some months before the event is held in Rome, local phases are organized at the university headquarters of each country. For the last four years, the Catalonia phase has been held at the UIC.

The theme of UNIV 2013 is “Reality Check: Discovering Human Identity in a Digital World”. The idea is to reflect on how we are forced to adapt to a new world that is constantly changing. The paper by Professor Miquel Duran on Wednesday, 17 October 2012, at the UIC was presented within this specific context: “I am myself and my digital circumstances”.

Duran invited the audience to think about the growing dependence we have on technology and social media. He said that, because this dependence is so strong, “Everything would appear to indicate that the role of universities will be advisory in nature, given that more and more of them are offering good online study programmes. For good or bad, education is being changed, whether we like it or not”.

Dr. Duran said, “Today I am my file, my computer, my smartphone and my email”. Many things define us and, unlike what we might think or should think, they make us work even harder: “Honestly, I don't know if all of this is sustainable. A day has twenty-four hours and I need twenty-five! Every day I have 100 emails to answer, blog comments, tweets, etc.”

Despite this somewhat bleak prospect, Miquel Duran ended his lecture by quoting a sentence that impressed him when he read it in an ad in Georgia: “Your attitude is your choice”.

Continuing with the light-hearted tone of his speech, Duran concluded by saying, “These things are changing from one minute to the next. At least that's how I see it right now. Tomorrow might be different”.