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Yes Werner Herzog mentions the collective insanity of humanity in conjunction with text messaging in one of his documentaries. Games and text messages and socia
by tgarma1234 10y ago
Yes Werner Herzog mentions the collective insanity of humanity in conjunction with text messaging in one of his documentaries. Games and text messages and social media have captured peoples brains. People are drawn into their devices mentally and emotionally in a way that barely makes them present in the actual world, even when they are walking to work or dining with friends or driving. There is something so magnetic about these devices that draws in almost every person who encounters them in a way that is not healthy.
Because it's all happening in real time to humanity as a whole it's hard to see the bigger picture of how we are changing. I think of it as probably being like how people responded to the invention of fire. It just made perfect sense and took over the world and happened to everyone together. Being present in the midst of this historical change is an opportunity to know something very deep about human beings, who we are.
The biggest thing about these changes from my perspective is that people are devolving into something that looks like a collective autism. Like they are obsessed with the fact that something is happening somewhere else at all times and the device has opened a window to seeing it. And yet when you look out that window into the collective digital consciousness of pictures and texts and advertising you see that there is actually nothing happening at all that isn't exactly what you would expect. People doing things. But always somewhere else.
The main thing I don't like is when I am walking downtown and people are literally just wandering mindlessly as a herd texting on their phones not even looking up at traffic as they cross the street. They navigate by being aware of other people's direction and path but oblivious to their own. For example, I will be crossing the street and another person who is texting will walk just a few steps behind me texting, looking at their phone, never looking up at traffic and trusting that if they follow my path they will end up on the other side of the street. I don't even know really how to describe that experience but I am sure everyone else has it too. It's like people have been reduced to herd animals walking collectively while immersed deeply in their devices... because there isn't possibly anything at all happening in this present moment that is worth paying attention to. And I am not talking about one or two people walking around in this way. It's practically everyone.
Honestly, am I the only person who notices this? I wonder.
- ensiferum 10y agohttp://akns-images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201595/rs_600x600-151005162758-600.woman-no-cell-phone-black-mass.ls10515.jpg http://akns-images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201595... self obsessed, self absorbed, selfish-stick zombie society living through 4" screen.
- chrstphrhrt 10y agoExcept for the awesomely peaceful looking old lady!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sethjgore 10y agoYou aren't the only one noticing it. It seems to me that these devices tap into a collective unconsciousness, and this I observe to be anxiety or general human fidgety. I wonder if these devices entrance us the same way books and text entrance us. Books create realities that only exist in mind, perhaps these images, feeds, videos are the same thing, but in a modern way? our devices entrance us to a state of mind not so different from reading a book (which is more healthy nevertheless), and i think because human consciousness is merely a feedback loop, we seek for things that reflect the mind well, so hence mirrors, text, photos, videos, and these devices.
- m_fayer 10y agoMy pet theory: the digital world is just real enough for us to inhabit without feeling alone, while removing a few crucially difficult elements of in-person interaction. Because we can't escape the reality of being social animals, we gravitate toward the easier social world - the digital one, and thus we end up checked out of the physical world way too much. I've been disturbed, above all, by the following dynamics that are missing from the digital world: Social awkwardness is alleviated by asynchronicity, there's no such thing as awkward silence online, and you can carefully craft everything you put out there. One can avoid various flavors of vulnerability and ennui. Hiding your face from others means no one can see your exhaustion, dissatisfaction, denial, boredom, etc. - and because you see yourself more clearly when reflected through the eyes of others, a lack of that reflection makes self-deception that much easier. And on the flip side, avoiding seeing these things on the faces of others allows us to escape the difficulty and obligation that empathy imposes on us. This would all be great if we didn't need these and other hardships of the analog world to truly flourish, but we do. So existence in the digital-social world becomes akin to slow carbon monoxide poisoning. It fools your system just enough that you don't realise that you're actually suffocating - the ill effects pile up while the alarm systems (loneliness, need for intimacy) stay mum.