We are a distracted people. Humanity has finally overcome the little things with more and more little things. When I think about how much I rely on technology, it kind of scares me. For instance, how often do I check my phone daily? 15-20 times? How often do we log onto Facebook just to see if someone has replied to our posts or liked our status? People are craving more and more social recognition online than in person and I believe that may be the moral decay of our society. Indoctrination to the vast world that we know little about.
Everyone knows I can talk about anything. I talk too much. Sometimes people give me odd looks like I'm super smart and they just don't get it or that I'm super dumb and they just don't get it. I think I'm interesting. I think part of that comes by taking advantage of humanity's weakness: face-to-face interaction. I have a loud, obnoxious personality sometimes but other times, I can be very engaging. I know my social weaknesses, but I still have a great strength in language that most people lack. People can say anything they want in written form, I used to be that way too. I only wrote what I felt and let my pen do the talking... I have since learned to make my words poignant and visceral. I get a lot of odd looks when I say what's on my mind, partially because I'm weird and partially because people are not used to forwardness in conventional conversation.
Social Networking is a bastardization of media, consumerism, and Psychology. On twitter, news of the London Riots reached 1.6 million people in less than four minutes, 28 minutes before any news organization had the story on air. Facebook games are a billion dollar industry, literally thousands of people pay money to buy things for an imaginary game world like farmville. Can you imagine if our efforts were dedicated collectively towards a real farm?
The positive aspects of the internet can be seen as well, I won't deny what a great source of information the internet is and the positive influence it has had over my own life. I spend a lot of time discovering things I do not know or have never heard. I'm able to study cultures I'd never even known about, learn about quantum mechanics on a basic level, get help with my math homework, and find out about local and national news in seconds. We take in so much information daily but unfortunately we use and apply very little of that information. We have a great social tool, we have a sociological melting pot and panacea at our disposal, yet we treat it as a great nepenthe, a parasite feeding off our distraction.
Instead of talking to someone, we text. Why? Because it's easier? No, more than likely it's because we are becoming more antisocial. People are getting dumber. Take a look at american politics or our media and their reliance on conservative or liberal one liners and twitter to see that happening before your eyes. We use lol, lmfao, and idk to form full thoughts and sentences. We have disregarded all of the benefits that come with going out and having a beer with friends, we can't even hold a conversation without checking our phones. I'm as guilty as anyone. No one truly writes anymore, they blog. No one talks, they texts or message each other. How well do we know our friends outside of their technological lives? At what point do we consider ourselves part of this mass machine as we lose our individuality? I can't say for certain what the future holds, but I do believe that as our communication becomes crippled, so will our world. If we were asked about the defining moment in history two hundred years from now, what would that be? For me, it would be the day everyone stopped paying attention.
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