We refuse to disconnect, we reek of attention. We crawl from webpage to webpage trying to find something that excites us, trying to find something to fill the gaps and give us momentary pleasures of laughter and humour. It has settled into our everyday lives that technology consumes at least one third of our days time. And who knows, maybe some day it’ll eventually become a necessity and that without it, life may become non existent.
Even our wrinkly friends have jumped onto the bandwagon, not that it’s anything bad. And some may argue that letting our little ones the permission to be exposed to technology at a young age may in some way be a terrible terrible decision to welcome them to this world. But some day, we’ll soon forget what the word book means, what a newspaper is, what it meant to dwell in each other’s company and conversations. Some day it’ll be too late to salvage any of this and soon… our kids will even question why our generation is ‘so old’.
We’re scared to put our phones down. We’re scared to switch them off. Because if we do, we’ll have to face up to who we really are without the screen and meet our component; silence. We fear silence, we are terrified of it. It feels as if it is sucking you in alive, ripping you open and showing you just how dissatisfied you are about yourself, in the presence of yourself without all the fancy lights and sparkles. We subconsciously hide, create a world within these four walls and use it to escape from the real world. Escape from the compulsory greetings, small talks, the obligatory freedom of speech everyone is entitled to on a daily basis. Simply because we are too busy attending to these so called business we supposedly have in those little screens.
We whip out these small hand held devices whenever we seem to think we get bored. Break time; phones out eyes down. On trains, buses, trams; phones out eyes down. I don’t deny that I do it also and I don’t exclude myself from the majority. And it’s hard to say that I’m not talking about myself here either. Call me observant or nosy. But if there isn’t going to be any changes in the way we expose ourselves to these bright little screens that sits in our pockets or our bag, we are opening doors to a future that revolves around flashing colours, gossip stories bouncing off every corner, constant adverts screaming into our ears; it is as if we are settling for less, settling for the bare minimum. We let our minds be enclosed and trapped within these small screens and restrain ourselves from exploring and understanding what more we can indulge in outside these bright eye-tearing screens. Because face it, we all want acknowledgement, acceptance, to be part of what we call the norm. The norm of having hundreds of followers on instagram, the norm of collecting and hoarding as many likes as you can so you can feel satisfied about yourself. Everyone is in fact blindly searches for themselves and truly, their identity lies within that screen. Without it, without it’s presence, who are you ?
Although what I speak of only seems to be one part of our distorted lives, I could be wrong in many ways. Where the reliance on technology in some circumstances is and can be so crucial. Locating and seeking directions to new destinations, keeping in contact with those who are often unreachable in person, relaying sick calls to our boss when we decide not to come in to even a short and sweet message to our parents to tell them you’re coming home for dinner tonight. In some instances, it is a true miracle that technology exists but it is also in this very notion of things that it can get exploited as well. But hey, I’m not the one here to remind you of what better life you can have when you look up from your screen, or what other activities you can compose yourself in when you are bored during your commute to and from places on a daily basis. Life is more enjoyable with and around people. And when you need time alone to recollect yourself, then do that, alone. Because what does time alone actually mean if it is not spent with you, yourself and you alone?
– T.
Benevolent 