If we conceive of computers as an external auxiliary brain, and we see the Internet as all human thought and behavior compressed into binary, then when we gawk into our smartphones, as we do compulsively now, and scan our feeds, what we are REALLY doing is checking in on our shared global digitized human consciousness. Many human needs are attempted to be met at the feet of this global digital human consciousness. All this is done through the TROUGH of the smartphone. The needs span from information, to humor, to social contact, to sexual gratification. This external digital human consciousness, the Internet, is a single stop buffet—for us, by us. When we go online and ask ourselves, “What is going on in the world today?” what we are asking is, “What thoughts of the global human consciousness are trending right now?”
We are trained to spend our time decoding social reality. We are all trend forecasters, commentators now. We are the intelligensia of the endless information-entertainment-social media feed. Whether its the latest in celebrity gossip to quantum computing gossip. We all feed on the Feed at the trough of the smartphone. The pocket sized feeding tube. We march through the city with earbuds snubbed into our heads or dangling from our pockets so that we can dip into the Net at any moment and listen in on our evolving collective glossolalia.
We spend most of our waking time decoding the cypher of human civilization and human consciousness. We read information but don't ask what is information? What is the meaning of information? And in the meta-buzz, we rarely encounter people attempting to decode reality itself. For to decode reality one must begin with the decoder first. Us. This is the domain of the philosopher, the scientist, the poet, the artist, the teacher, and the mystic. This is what we need more of in this overindulged voicing of so-called news. We need folks who make their very living presence the Research.
— Eliott Edge