Razzy Rants: The Digital Revolution?

Walking around with our heads down, watching that flickering screen in our hand as if it shows us the way (which it sometimes does) ignoring all that goes on around us. This is the faith of so many people these days. So is this really the age of the mindless zombies, or am I just mistaken?

Braaaaaiiiinnsss

I guess this time, we still want to feed our brain, but choose to do so with the abundance of information we now gather thanks to the internet, and the freely available and affordable smartphones nowadays. Not only does this allow us to get one much sooner then we used to, but it makes us lazy. Why should we remember the opening hours of a shop, let me just google it, or even an address? Just go to the site, and you’ll get the needed directions narrated directly to you. This leads to us, no more relying on ourselves, but more on those little gadgets in our hands. No longer do we double-tap (as a man) to see if we’ve got our wallet and keys, but we’ll triple-tap, to check for our phone. (or just forget one of the earlier -_-‘) We crave to find out more about our so-called friends, want to share everything we do, or simply want to keep up with current events. Enslaved workers like me check every 5 seconds to see if they’ve gotten that mail they’re waiting for all day. But so we just keep checking that damn thing to feed our brains.

The walk

Since we now so depend on those machines, we need to update our memory constantly. Not only to check if we’re doing what we have to do right, but also check if we’re still up-to-date with all the important news items we could’ve missed. Doing so we just ignore everything else, focusing on the screen in our hand and not the world around us. I know a lot of people that almost walked out on a street, not even noticing the car heading straight at them. All those people driving while texting, or worse, just writing some blog! *cough* Once I was texting a good mate of me while walking through the city, and we just passed each other, never noticing it. Which was awkward, since we were texting about meeting up. If we’d only looked around we would’ve seen each other and had a drink right then. We keep staring at our device, relying on it to tell us what we want to do, need to get and have to admire. While we can just put it in our pockets, open our eyes and look around. And even with all the looking at the ground, we still succeed in stepping on that one pile of steaming ‘joy’ left by our neighbor’s dog.

Consequences

We’re so busy feeding, sharing and keeping up to date, it has come so far we’d quicker take a picture of a car crash than going up and see if everyone’s okay. If a child falls and starts crying, I’ve seen parents make a movie, instead of checking if the kid’s all right. That’s just wrong. Make sure everything’s all right before laughing about it. Your kid will last longer than that damn picture. People also tend to take more time before getting a driver’s license, the functions on your smartphone takes priority on the cost of getting that license. Thanks to our smartphones, we’re more hesitant on going out and meeting new people. This results in a decline in income for bars, and other places where we used to go out, even movies! We tend to move less, because it’s no longer needed, and we order food online, or via fast-food services, it’s easy, we can do it while browsing, and we don’t have to do a thing. We even pay for it all from the luxury of our own couch using our tablet. And so we get fatter and fatter, and once we’re realizing we’ve become a bit overweight, we’re too scared to go to a gym. How do you mean, no internet, no data AND other people! .. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as enslaved as you are, or even more! But it remains important that we keep thinking of these consequences. Or else we’ll find ourselves quicker In a scene of Wall-E then we’d like to admit so..

Be free!

Put down that phone, don’t recharge that tablet and go out! Don’t fracking text and drive, and at least wear a headset while driving.. Notice the things around you. Go to a park, and instead of checking in, take a football and play a match with your friends. Meet up for a party in your living room instead of online, or go out to eat with friends and “phone stack”! The current rise of board games is a very good step forward. Get together and play a game. You’ll put down those phones, be with friends and (most likely) end up having tons of laughs. And the first one to pick up his/hers phone gets punished! So call up some people if you’re bored. You’ll find out you can quickly get some friends together just for a fun night.. and if you get called, don’t use the excuse “I’m too tired..” you’ve been “feeding” all day, time to have fun!