Many people stares at their smartphones and are missing out of enjoying the present moment. Technology has taken over our lives totally and turned almost everybody to smartphone addicts. And this is just the beginning!
“It’s not a measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”, said the indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. He died in year 1986 and therefore he had the luxury to never experience the invasion of smartphones, but his quote has gotten a new dimension in today’s context.
In a society when you feel different if you’re not always staring at a screen like everybody else. In a culture where to curiously look around you in public places when you’re alone will soon classify as psychopathy. No, you should look down, on the screen, not at people around you! It doesn’t matter if you’re waiting for the bus, are sitting in a bar or in a beach restaurant in an exotic country, the smartphone is always there.
As soon as people are bored they need to check social media. People don’t know how to be bored anymore or just to be present in the moment. The only time you see them smile is when they’re taking a selfie with a selfie stick. Look how beautiful I am! (Yeah, with 20 filters everybody looks good …!) Look how amazing, fun and exciting my life is! (Okay, so what do you do on your spare time apart from checking social media? What hobbies do you have?) Everything is just an act and it’s all fake. Nothing is real anymore! We’re truly living in Plato’s cave!
When is there going to be a new psychiatric diagnosis for this? Smartphone addict. Of course there is healthy use and abuse and the smartphone is not only an evil thing if you manage to use it with moderation. It’s the systematic abuse that hurt people. To check social media every fifth minute does harm. To have parallel conversations online when you’re having coffee with a friend does harm. To experience things in life mostly so that you can take a photo and get a story to post on social media does harm. To miss out on enjoying the present moment does harm. Maybe it’s healthy to be bored sometimes? To have time to reflect and to think about things.
We live in a world where the majority of humans are obsessed with their smartphone. Their new best friend. A teddy bear that you keep close to you even in bed at night. And nobody seems to react to this, nobody seems to think it’s strange and abnormal. Technology have already taken over society and the science fiction movie directors can just make real life documentaries instead of fiction. Many people could be classified as smartphone addicts. These are the well-adjusted people. The persons that doesn’t care too much about the new technology seems weird.
It’s not a measure of health to do what everybody else is doing without questioning it, it’s not healthy to abuse the new technology. We live in a sick society. Jiddu Krishnamurti is more right than ever.
/Glittergirl