It would only make sense that as the rest of the world relies more heavily on digital access and social media that museums would begin to become more digitized to accommodate the rest of the world. Not only simply online, but they have become more technologically savy when it comes to the physical exhibits within a museum. The digital aspect of a museum is also very advantageous when it comes to art museums and the documentation of pieces. However, is this what the artists would have wanted? Their art exhibited artificially rather than physically? As art becomes more and more digitized and known through pictures of the actual art, people begin to lose respect for texture and color since the image is flattened through photography and one is not able to grasp the physical (not depicted) depth within a picture and layers of paint, strokes, etc…
Of course as with all things, there are positive and negative sides to the digitization of the museum. The Smithsonian, in the past, has voiced some of their complaints and concerns when it comes to new technologies and their relationships to museums.