I have been in a slight fog the last couple days. It isn't from drinking too much, rather it is from the medication I take for my stomach condition. The injection I give myself every two weeks is far easier on me than the intravenous treatment in the hospital I used to have every 2 months, but it still has some effects on my head, and body. It makes me pretty tired.
But I am often tired.
It is the fog that really impacts on me, as I am not overly sharp at the best of times, so the fading in and out gets more pronounced and makes it harder to hold a decent conversation. I still talk, but it just isn't decent :)
I was talking with a friend the other day about dating, and the conversations people have. It is far faster to meet face to face and get to know someone that way, as there are a whole range of "tests" that happen automatically to work out whether there is something there or not. Online is a terrible way to actually get to know someone, because their responses aren't immediate, there is always a break between replies, giving space to think or Google, without it seeming weird.
Just imagine if someone gave even thirty seconds between replies on a date over coffee, while they searched their phone for an answer, or the perfect gif.
Pretty pathetic.
Similarly, I was trying to explain to my wife what a "slide night" was the other day. For those who are old enough, people used to go on rare holidays and be so excited about the handful of pictures they took (on film) that they would show them to friends and family, projecting them onto the wall through the negatives, using a carousel projector.
Now, just imagine if I invited you around for a slide night, and when you arrived, I handed you a glass of wine, and we sat on the couch and I started showing you my pictures.
And they were all selfies.
Desperate.
As I click through similar pose after similar pose, with pouting lips, scrunched eyes, or tussling my hair, you would probably not only think I was narcissistic, but possibly also mentally deranged. It would be incredibly uncomfortable, yet we live in a digital world where people do this daily. Streams and streams of pictures of faces in unnatural poses, with AI filters, all in the hope that strangers will give it a heart.
Still desperate.
You'd probably laugh and say "What the fuck is this?" - but you would be too scared that I would get offended and get all axe-murder-y on you. You'd sip at your wine, hoping it wasn't spiked, then excuse yourself at your earliest convenience, never to return.
The proper response.
But, we have changed the way we interact with each other, without thinking whether it is a better way or not. A lot of younger people say "this is the way it is done now" without questioning if it is the way it should be done. Is this progress, does it make for a better interpersonal experience, a better life? unlikely.
A friend who apparently follows Jonathan Haidt on X sent me this today:
There is more to it than what is mentioned in that Tweet (or whatever the fuck they are called now), but it scratches the surface of some of the digital dangers for people. There is a cost to the way we behave and the costs for the digital-first generations are already showing in multiple ways. We don't have to get into them here and now again, but people are generally not happy in their lives, and loneliness is increasing rapidly.
It is someone else's fault.
It is a bit like when a kid did something stupid and blamed their friend who did it first, and a parent will ask, "If your friend jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?" In today's world...
Yes.
Everyone else is doing it and I don't want to miss out on being part of what everyone else is doing. So, I have to get onto social media, take some selfies, watch some porn, gamble a bit, shop and rate my success by the engagement I get from strangers who don't know or care about me at all. I have to date numerous people, even if I don't want to. I need to buy the latest gadgets and install the latest apps, otherwise I will fall behind the group. I have to chase a career, even though all I really want to do is settle down with a nice person and have a family.
But, it isn't all of this that I think are the biggest problems with the way we have built the digital landscape. The biggest issue is that it changes our level of creativity, making us incapable of problem-solving and increasingly reliant on tools to do what we used to do by ourselves earlier. Some people think this is progress, as it "saves space" for other things, but the problem is that when we are doing this from young, all we have is space.
What we are filling that space up with exactly?
So many kids can barely read, barely count, have low emotional control, are unable to form healthy friendships, and are constantly feeling negative about themselves, whilst being completely confident that they know and are doing what is right for themselves.
It is good that they are pushing so hard for working from home, because that way they won't have to face the feeling of being judged by others in real life. They can then just pretend to be someone they are not, perhaps using a cute digital avatar made by generative AI, that represents the "real them", the one they want to be, not the one they are not right now.
Living the moment fully.
But hey, I don't know much about anything at all, since I am in a mind fog anyway. The "kids of today" no far better than me, which is fantastic, because they are the ones who are going to have to live their lives for 80-100 years, looking in the mirror each day.
Remove the mirrors!
All of life's problems fixed.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
