*It's Kinda late but I got really stuck -_-*
Digitalization In Our Lives: Pretty Much the bad in it.
Introduction-
When it comes to our lives and what we want/ need almost everyone will say "I WANT to be happy." We base our daily lives and our daily routine on things that we believe will genuinely make us happier. But we never think deeper into where we all got these "genuine ideas." Have you ever realized that the ideas that we think are unique, aren't really? How many people want to be happy? how many people really believe happiness is what we need? the answer is sooo many, and though I do believe happiness is what we want/ need and will really make us better, I also believe that TRUE happiness is what we should be looking for. So where do we get this idea of what happiness is? Technology, and Digitalization are brainwashing us into becoming beings that THEY see as "happy."
We honestly don't know any other form of happiness other than what we are told, and even though most of us will deny it, that is usually how everything in our lives works. We are told something, it is proved and we automatically believe it. Why doubt it huh? Why question it when its soo much easier to just follow it? We believe that if we think someone knows more than us or proves themselves to us we need to follow them. We look up to people with power, they seem better to us, almost as though they know more. “Power is everything in life” thats something I’ve heard people say so many times, so could this be the reason why technology has had such a big effect on us throughout time? I believe so.
Argument 1-
The truth is that the digital world IS very powerful, one can say its power shines over others. It has become the center of pretty much everything we do, we rely on it to do many everyday things. Nowadays everything is digital. We meet new people in websites such as, Facebook, Myspace and an endless list of more, with these we can also keep up with the people we already know. AIM,Yahoo Messenger, MSN, all help us do these things as well, not only with people here, but even with people from other countries. Its power expands from more than just us here, but everywhere around the world. With power like that how easy can it be to transmit a message, make it popular, and make everyone believe it with out them thinking, realizing, KNOWING that what you are doing isn’t good for them? How is easy is it to manipulate everyone by having them just click a button on a device? Because that is what they are doing to us, MANIPULATING us into believing EVERY THING they say.
On a day to day basis we are surrounded by more than one kind of digital device. We are so used to having these devices that without them we feel different, maybe even empty. It sounds drastic but that is just what our society has come to. For a school assignment we had to interview strangers about their digital lifestyle. During the interview of a stranger these were some my results:
..........
Me: How many hours would u say you spend on things such as your phone,ipod, internet, t.v? Stranger #1: A lot of time! Its my whole life in this one simple device, it can't get better than that.
Me: Really? So you don't see any harm in it? You don't think ppl are too addicted?
Stranger #1: Hmm , there might be some harm and ppl might be addicted but honestly I dnt see myself without all this technology. Where would we be?
Me: Ok, so on that note, do you think well ever go back to how it was before?
Stranger #1: I hope we don't haha, its too useful.
........
The answers the stranger had given me weren’t much different from what I saw other people had gotten. It just goes to show us how much we rely on the digital world.
Its something that we just can't hide from due to the amount we see all around us. That is already a problem. How can we do simple everyday things when they are made to be EVEN MORE simple, even though that can work for our benefit, think about how everything is making us dumber. Do we really need to make things sooo simple? The only thing we are getting out of it is STUPIDITY. We won't be able to do anything by ourselves and well end up relying even more on the digital. Something soo big as this can make us believe anything. Even something so personal like what makes us happy.
Happiness is something we all look for. We want to enjoy life, be free, be ..happy right? Its a powerful idea that we all want/need, technology knows this. It portrays a vision of what they see as "happy" puts it out there, and we FOLLOW. This vision is of having the BEST digital item, getting things done quickly and as easily as possible, having things rite then and there, as well as feeling like YOU have the POWER to do ANYTHING.
Argument 2-
In the well knows movie "Wall-E", we meet a robot named Wall-E who "lives" on earth cleaning up a huge mess that was left. There is no, we can say, "real" life there, all the humans have moved to this EXCITING, EXTRAVAGANT, NEW world in outer space, where everything seems to lead to what's best for them. One day Wall-E meets and falls in love with a robot called Eva who leads him through a journey into this new world, once there we see what/ how this world really is. After living so many years in microgravity and relying on the ship's automated systems, the human passengers have suffered severe bone loss and become extremely obese. The humans are able to get anything they want by just clicking a button on the chairs they ride in, they don't even have to walk. They have these huge screens on there faces were they see the latest trend , best new device etc. and can easily get it. This is suppose to be our happiness. On an important scene in the movie Wall-E is trying to get past an obese woman but she doesn't even realize he's there, he turns off her screen and for the first time, in what seemed to be a long time, she gets up and really notices her surroundings , the things around her , she even says "I didn't know we had a pool!"
Does this not remind you of anyone? When were on our phones, texting, IMing, checking facebook our emails, playing video games at home, at our computers, watching our favorite tv shows, listening to our Ipods, we are so ENGROSSED in these things that we don't NOTICE anything around us. Our surrounding fade into a dark background in which we don't hear, see , acknowledge anything. Just look into the beginning of this course, we recorded our selves performing our daily digital activities. ALL of us were staring , sooo concentrated in whatever we were doing. Our faces resembled does of zombies almost. It was as though for the minutes in which we were REALLY into whatever we were doing nothing else mattered, nothing else was IMPORTANT. We are pulled by these digital hands and are held in place until something finally breaks it off. Is that what happiness is supposed to be? Not ACTUALLY experiencing life first hand?
Argument 3-
Feed by M.T Anderson is a great example of how our lives are NOW due to the digitalization. Titus is a young boy who travels with his friends to the moon to have some fun. They want to live "brag" lives, where they try to show off how many places they've been to and who knows the most about how they can live "brag." A problem occurs though when they are hacked and can no longer hear there feeds and must fend for themselves. Titus, with the help of Violet (the only one who can fend with out the feed) must try to overcome the lives they have and truly live and experience for themselves. The feed would control them, help them make something possible, with out it they felt lost , alone, empty,confused. We see the idea of happinnes being "brag" easy and simple , being able to do things that other wise would seem impossible . At the same time though we see that Anderson is trying to tell us to live our lives in a way were we experience and get out of it the most. Happiness isn't depending on an object and what it can do for you now is it?
So what is true happiness? Honestly, I don't think I know that just yet. I'm also a victim of technology and its idea of what is being "happy." I find myself wanting a new phone ( the new blackberry I have for example) and sometimes wanting to get a better ipod, I'm not only pointing fingers at others, but at myself. That's because I don't think we at this point at least, can get over the digital lifestyle we have become so accustomed to. I can't tell anyone "THIS IS HAPPINESS!!!! OPEN YOUR EYES TO IT!!" But I can tell people that the way we are living isn't being TRULY happy. Constant depending on what we see on a screen to tell us what's new, what's in, what's old news, what we should look like , isn't what we need to strive for. We should be able to have our own ideas of what we think is all these things. Happiness should be genuine , not superficial or shallow , it should just be US and our individual and original thoughts, but technology doesn't allow that.
Of course everyone should have their own idea of happiness whether we will get to that point I'm not sure. I do believe though that a start should be having less technology , depending/ relying LESS on it. Imagine how different thing would be, sure it will be hard at first, but idnt that how we BECAMe addicted to technology to beging with? We didn't know about it, we just got used to it, so now we have to get used to beijng WITHOUT it. Maybe then, and only THEN will we experience TRUE HAPPINESS.
Works Cited-
Feed- M.T Anderson
Wall-E
Interviews
Blogs
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