Ces 2018

No technological development has changed the nature of human existence as have smartphones. There is human history prior to smartphones...and there is human history post smartphones. Those of us over, say, the age of 35 are the last generation to have lived as adults prior to smartphones and the sea-change in the nature of human existence resulting from smartphones. We are the last to have existed as humans existed for all of human history up until smartphones. Today's youth and all human beings from hence on will have no idea what it was like to have existed without smartphones. They will only be able to imagine what it was like to have existed as humans existed for most of human history up until smartphones.

Never, ever, ever again will one walk into a busy coffee shop, hotel lobby, or airport terminal without there being someone engrossed in their smartphone and oblivious to the environment around them. Never again will one attend a wedding or a concert without there being people documenting it on a smartphone and posting the images / video on social media. Never again will one attend an event where- outside of professional media persons- the attendees are all just enjoying the moment and not feeling the need to capture it for sharing on social media. Those days are over. Forever. The compulsion, obsession, and addiction of smartphones is here to stay. And that makes me a bit sad for us all. It brings to mind a saying that buddhists had in criticism of Westerners- "never happy in an empty room". Which is an unfair criticism because we CAN be happy in an empty room as long as that room has wi-fi.
 
I always tell anyone who’ll listen that I was always the introverted anti-social type. When the smartphones came out, that was technology catching up to ME.
 
JPNola,
I think it might be more of a progression..with the advent of the camcorder, internet somewhere in it.
 
The deeper problem is the issue of participation and enjoyment.
John Berger stated a very long time ago that women have been taught to not only be, but also to watch themselves being.
They are observing themselves as they are busy being observed. In the past they were more often the subject of the painting, less often the painter.
For actors as well as women, this is a huge problem which gets in the way of being in the moment.
Only when an actor trusts a director long enough to stop watching him/herself can they truly get into the role.

Now imagine what smartphones and social media have done to self-awareness and presentation.
We are ALL now watching ourselves being watched and we are tailoring our images to that fact as a result.

This hyper self-awareness not only gets in the way of enjoying the moment, but becomes a kind of moment and ritual in itself.
However I do think there arrives a point where many people decide that this is not satisfying enough.
The problem is whether or not they can put down the habits of filling space with their technology.

When we discover just how difficult this can be, we begin to see our dependencies and addictions.
I think puredrifting's initial comment touches a nerve.
I do not say I am any better at getting back into the moment and away from this dependancy than him or anyone else.
It is indeed challenging.
 
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