A world where the commodity revolves around time and content terrifies me. We are already being systematically programmed by computers to utilise their functions to achieve a high degree of efficiency. However, where is the balance of time vs efficiency. It is not efficient to sleep, therefore, why do we do it?
With so much content going around, how will it be so easy to find what we are looking for. Super monarchs of the digital world such as YouTubers will eventually be in power in a society where followers, views and viewing time are revolutionising power. Or, is this dystopia as I see it, alive presently?
It takes me 15 minutes every morning to go through my Instagram and Snapchat stories to see what others are up to before I even start my day, a ritual that I have come to see is destroying my lifestyle. I find myself snap chatting everything I do because I want the social recognition of being someone in this world, so people can see what I’m doing, what wonders on a plate I am eating (usually smashed avo) and how bored I am at home.
Okay, I’m frothing. Source.
Everything is always online, I am accessible 24 hours a day and I feel like if I shut off even one device for one second I am not worthy of the opportunities I have been given. The overwhelming weight of the world crushes me and if I am not doing work then I am failing at something, I am not living. If I am not making content, writing something down, thinking about a new project, trying to make money… Then I am wasting my time, possibly doing something that I love.
You know, the attention economy that we have created through social media is leading us to a spiral of content watching that will eventually become the biggest aggregator of time in our lives. We become obsessed with those around us and their lives because we cannot get satisfaction or closure out of our own. I am guilty of this pleasure as I look through my feed with pictures from around the world, the people I follow, my friends, family, randoms, influencers all posting pictures of themselves having the times of their lives. All the while, I am blankly scrolling through on my iPhone screen, double tapping, commenting LOL and simultaneously having a blank look of disdain on my face.
It is not that I am unhappy with the life that I live and surrounds me, it is that I fear the world that will eventually be upon me where our actions will become as fabricated as our profiles and our lives even less private.
The thing is, if we make one minuscule mistake, it will be online forever, the ridicule may or may not stop, it may be infinite where a persons character is beyond repair. As a society, we are desensitising social media and integrating a cyber mob mentality without physical consequences as of yet. Films such as Nerve (2016) and Black Mirror’s Hated in the Nation (2016) are easily foreseeable futures that represent the ways in which individuals already interact with each other on social media. It is a violent, manifested battle for blood where we silence the opinions and actions that we do not agree with, spreading hate until there is no positivity left. Who am I to judge really, I am guilty myself, it does not change the fact that I fear for a future where these actions cause physical consequences.
Eventually, everything will become integrated to the online world, where we rely on it so heavily, we will not be able to hear our own thoughts as we are bombarded with others. Of course the positives of accessibility and the homogenisation of space and time due to this technology outweigh the dystopian negatives, but at what point will we say enough of these digital technologies that we become so enveloped and reliant on. When will be lose empathy for favour of efficiency?
I just find the aspects of infinite accessibility to workplaces, university study and a social life tiring. To have our brains on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is draining the life out of us making the new bags under our eyes a new fad of fashion. I for one, hate bags.
I am mostly scared of my own abilities and being left behind. Grasping technology and a social network is one thing, but understanding the ins and outs, how to get ahead in such an industry as ours and become successful is another thing. I keep contemplating what it would be like as an influencer in 10 years, where influencers are royalty as money becomes even more important. I imagine a cyberpunk aesthetic where we are bombarded with advertisements of our favourite influencers.
The thing is, I’m scared that one day greed will envelop me as I obsess over my own following in possible attempts for exposure. What will people do for fame? To gain exposure and become famous influencers? What happens if everyone is an influencer? Are we already influencers?… A digital world harbours dissent along with connectivity and boundless limitations.
~ krisesandchrosses ~
krisesandchrosses 