It is unlikely that you ever see a table of people having dinner where one of them is not on their mobile device, if not all of them. We have become slaves to their devices and we have become overstimulated by content and consumption on mobile devices and desktops.
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This video by Prince Ea, otherwise known as Richard Williams, challenges how we live our lives inside of technology. He argues that our connections have become more widened and instead of bringing us closer together, technology has allowed us to drift apart. Williams is an American rapper, music video director and rights activist from St Louis, Missouri.
“I don’t want to take a picture mama meals anymore I’m just gonna eat,” he says. Calling the conformity to certain social media norms such as Throwback Thursday as part of “performing in the pageantry a vanity conformity” as an accepted form of our digital insanity.
He makes some very valid points, about the destruction of language through abbreviations and intimate moments interrupted by mobile screen lights. He challenges Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, that his social network should rather be termed an anti-social network. These points are all valid.
People might counter argue his point. They will likely say that the truth is technology does not determine how human beings use it. There are benefit to the always on society that we have come to expect, there benefits to being connected all the time. The fact that humanity is unable to balance its usage of technology is actually not the fault of technology or the creators of that technology.
This, Williams knows, because he takes issue with humanity and how it is time to autocorrect our behaviour.
“You need not delete your social networks or destroy your cell phones, the message is simple, be balanced, be mindful, be present, be here.”
You cannot deny the share power of his message when you think about the number of times, you or your friends or family glance at the mobile devices on the table during a conversation. Our use of technology has made us so afraid of real human connections it seems we are more comfortable with the people in our computers and mobile phones than the ones in front of us.
