Escaping the digital world

With relationships today turning more and more “Digital”, increasing the dependence on “Social” networks, and using more of digital, rather than face-to-face communication, is the world getting any better?

When emotions are being digitised into “Emoticons” and people tend more to see the yellow bubble with a smile than a real face smiling, are we bit-by-bit forgetting human relationships?

As kids sit more in front of devices “simulating” that they are playing, easily “restarting” the game whenever they lose, are we bringing up a better generation able to face real-life scenarios?

The loss of Environmental Intelligence

I remember the first time corporate introduced blackberries / digital communication tools, and the number of hours spent by employees using those devices, thinking that they are “communicating” while they were in most cases “documenting” information. Rather than focusing on the real goal of “communication”, employees were focusing on doing things right (using proper words, copying the right people .. and not forgetting to “file” the email if necessary).

It was a start of a new era of being “device-bound” rather than “human-bound”.

Now, if employees get more “device-bound”, and spend over 10 hours per day doing this, which generation do we expect them to raise when they get home?

How many times have we seen mothers / fathers in shopping malls or open areas giving their young children an Ipad / Tab in order to “Shut-up” and let mum and dad do what they are doing? Is this helping?

Were kids smarter 20 years back? or are they today with the growth of the “smart” devices? Who is smarter, a kid who knows how to lead 20 horses through the forest or the one who knows how to operate 10 devices at the same time?

The answer to this question is very easy .. kids are as smart as they always used to be, but they changed the direction of their smartness from environmental intelligence to “digital intelligence”, and so did adults….. Is this something bad?

The rise of “Solitude” individuals

In a research published in 2012 in “The Atlantic”, it was suggested that new digital social networks have made people “lonelier than ever”. Researchers have demonstrated evidence to show that people grew very broad networks, yet very shallow .. to the level that when people really needed someone whom they can trust, someone to confess to, they were not able to find the “real” friend they actually wanted..

Go back to your Facebook “Friends” and ask yourself .. how many of them are real “Friends”.. or is it just the word (Friend) that software developers want us to believe?

To a great extent, I agree with the publishers .. In fact, it is extending to a further dangerous level as it is not only affecting the digital friends, but the remaining part of actual face-to-face relationships.

How frequent do we see a couple or a family sitting together in a very nice place, but with each member starring into their screens? How many times did we do the same? What is this teaching individuals? Where did the value of the “Human” touch go? The REAL human .. not those stupid ones on the right!

A very interesting research published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (Vol 97(6), Dec 2009, 977-991) showed that :” loneliness occurs in clusters, extends up to three degrees of separation, is disproportionately represented at the periphery of social networks, and spreads through a contagious process. The spread of loneliness was found to be stronger than the spread of perceived social connections…” (Cacioppo, J.T., Fowler, J.H and Christakis, N.A., 2009).

So here we are .. turning the world more digital, more “smart” but less social .. in other words, the world is bringing up “Solitude” generations at an extremely high speed..

“Solitude” is described as a state of isolation of individuals, and for a long time, it was believed to be intentional (for the sake of treatment, privacy) or unintentionally obligatory (like in the case of depression or similar circumstances). Nowadays, it is happening unintentionally but non-obligatory, where people fall into this without knowing, without needing and without a good reason!

How many people know their neighbours by heart? How many bake a cake for a new neighbour? How many drive and personally visit old friends? Or we would rather search neighbours on Facebook, and maybe send old friends a message?

Wake up! It’s a digital community!

The world is moving now from the logo on the left to the new logo on the right! Community is bit by bit losing its face, and in few years from now, people will depend on GPS / technology to show them the way to their friends’ homes (if they ever spare the time to pay a visit).

Instead of joining hands, we are joining groups on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter ..etc, trying to convince ourselves that we are connecting to our “friends”. As much as digital technology can “get us in touch”, let’s not forget that we are doing this via a machine.. We are forgetting the feelings and focusing on the text .. forgetting the context, and doing lots of content .. let’s be true to ourselves .. is it the same? A handshake and a message? A shoulder to share tears on and a sad face on a screen? What are we trading off here? Life for Work? Memories for short-term goals?

This is a plea to get back to our real selves .. to our human nature .. to escape away from the digital life and get back to real relationships .. Being “Busy” at work is not a good enough reason.. We all learn at work to manage time so let’s spare some of this to our beloved ones .. let’s not allow interruption to this exactly as much as we do not allow interruptions in our business meetings ..

Make a U-Turn now before its too late .. Every day we hear about someone dear to us who left this life .. do we want the last memory with them to be a text?

Get back to real life …