Defend Truth

Opinionista

The dissatisfaction of distraction: Real Life vs Social Media

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Ian von Memerty is a Zimbabwean-born South African entertainer, actor, singer, musician, writer, director and television presenter.

Being part of the world that lives inside smartphones and tablets can make you feel immersed in something special, a cocoon in which you can get lost, but when reality bites, it’s the tangible things of living a real human life that counts.

Every day I give thanks for the extraordinary age we live in. Every fact in the following sentences was impossible just 25 years ago. I am writing this document on a laptop computer. Any research will have been done on the internet. I will spellcheck, word count, and format it, then save it in the vast amounts of memory of my hard drive before sending an email via wi-fi to a media website. I will then post it on Facebook and I can check how effective it is on my smartphone via Twitter, Instagram etc. Banal, everyday facts that are simply extraordinary have altered my life forever (provided there are no power cuts and I can charge all the appliances needed).

I stay in touch with friends and loved ones through WhatsApp. We share pictures of our day and send each other little kisses and bunches of flowers via emoticons. Grannies and grandkids skype each other from all around the world. I watch wonderfully ludicrous videos of bulldogs surfing, and am moved to tears by stories of ordinary people transforming lives, and inspired by dazzling displays of brilliance and creativity – all of this while I lie on the couch.

Whether I want to see Donald Trump’s hair truss, Caitlyn Jenner’s new bust, Juju’s gut, Bucie’s butt or Jacob Zuma’s dancing on thin ice, all I have to do is be curious enough to tap a few keys. For the price of a movie ticket I can watch an endless selection of films, series, concerts and documentaries for a whole month. Voila! For the first time in history the phrase “the world at my fingertips” is a reality.

So why is the world so dissatisfied? Witness the nervous tick of an addict when phones have to be turned off on a plane. Anyone who has to sit in a waiting room for five minutes immediately dives into this world where they are not important – but feel desperate to be connected to. If we are not showing the world that we are “busy”, then we don’t mater. We are all King Midas, able to touch gold but experiencing nothing.

Psychological PhD’s are mining this rich mine of discontent with new studies coming out all the time about how TV is “bad” for you, how reading skills have plummeted, and the damaging consequences of social media.

In this country the suppurating boil of racism was lanced on social media, and out poured a stream of foul-smelling pus that made all of us feel unclean and infected. In the end this will probably be seen as a good thing – better the ugly truth than a pretty lie!

But watching my children and their friends negotiate this new world with a natural skill and facility that we will never have I have observed that if you want a depressed, grumpy, sullen child, get them to spend six hours a day on their phone.

Hi”, “Hi”, What u doing?”, “not much ?. U?”, “jus chilling”. This is a guaranteed formula to feel redundant.

All around us, and especially in their generation, they see the world whirling with success, and sensation, and sexiness, and satisfaction. And if they are lucky they might someday get to enjoy some of that – but economic reality means most of them will not. And even if they do enter the “charmed circle” of the employed and materially well-off, there will always be something new, fascinating and vital. So inevitably they feel left behind and left out.

On social media you can never achieve fulfillment, because you are but one sparkling little drop in a tsunami. Join in, go with flow, ride the wave, but know that you will be left feeling like “you are not quite good enough, someone is doing it better and has more”.

And know this too – should you be lucky enough to live to a healthy old age, in your twilight years it is a guarantee that every worthwhile memory that will leave you feeling enriched will have nothing to do with the internet.

It will be the human experience of love, loss, laughter, spirit, soul and sensuality that you will recall, not the daily distraction that keeps you from remembering that you are a singular creation in evolution. A thinking, feeling marvellous entity – a human being. No one like you has come before you or will follow you.

Technology is just a very useful byproduct of the true marvel – the flawed but feeling miracle that is mankind. DM

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