Screens
The average American spends 7 hours and 11 minutes per day staring at screens (413 minutes, daily). Out of an average of 940 waking minutes, that’s a whopping 43% of your life spent staring at a screen. This figure is far worse in Brazil and Asia, where 11 hours per day are spent staring at screens. That’s a staggering 70% of life engaging with a false reality (read on).
Zuckerberg wants to migrate the whole of the Internet to the Metaverse in a software-supported augmented reality designed by software engineers, accountants and advertisers without social responsibility. Most people still fail to realize that you are the actual product being marketed. The goal is to increase online interaction to encompass virtually everything that was once done in the real world. Shopping, sex, doctor visits, tourism, entertainment, sports, leisure activities, child rearing – you name it, it’s all being migrated to the meta.
I read an interesting article about Joe Rogan. Allegedly, he’s a “nice guy” but doesn’t screen his guests, which is why so many “guests” are so unfit for public broadcast. Rogan is a microcosm of a much larger problem since the advent of the Internet. Giving amplified microphones to millions of idiots can’t be a good thing for society. Social media companies promote whatever is deemed by them as popular so as to enhance screen time, interactions and advertising revenue, even if the information is blatantly wrong and even harmful.
Meta will make it much, much worse, but we’re not there yet, but soon will be.
Nobody online is actually interacting with anybody else, you’re actually interacting with curated artificial representations of the “real”. You can be anybody that you want, and so can everyone else. There is no authenticity. The software being used does not (and cannot) provide a true representation of anything. Images and words, videos and music is all selected for the experience and exposure that you are being allowed to see. None of this accurately conveys the full sights, sound, smell, touch, expressions or experience of what humans used to have in the real.
Nor is there any true accountability, or real factual representation. The online world, via software designed exactly for this purpose by unaccountable companies, encourages a pretense by all online participants, where you can select or fabricate the best parts of yourself or even the worst. This is no accident either, companies discovered early on that they could increase participation through the widespread acceptance of artificial personalities. And then they discovered the power of fake news. And how easily and powerful and profitable it could be to polarize and entire globe of human beings. The power now in their hands rivals the power of any nation and even all the nations combined.
The opportunities for manipulation and profits are literally boundless and already heavily exploited. The seductive volunteer nature of participating online engendered trust at first, and then betrayal as users discovered that their data could be manipulated, hacked, sold and even suppressed. But even this knowledge hasn’t stopped the waste of life staring at screens, it’s actually only made it worse, as polarized users just migrate ‘elsewhere’ where they can feel accepted.
Somehow in all of this, users have lost their awareness that virtually none of this is real, that it is all artificial, supported by millions of computers and billions of lines of software. Wasting 43% of your life may seem shocking, but it’s not so shocking that most won’t give it up, or consider themselves “responsible” online consumers. We’re often reminded that we’re better informed now but hidden in that message is how little this has actually done to make the world a better place. Screen time has replaced face time. Likes have replaced actual friendships. Social media pretends to be socially responsible. Children are left to sit in darkened rooms to stare at screens, their parents stuck inside doing exactly the same thing.
What’s actually going on here is truly horrific. Billions of minds persuaded through insidious addictions and software algorithms to ignore the real world. The seductive nature of being online is very powerful and can found to be very satisfying. It can also be very horrible if you’re caught up in the endless layers of propaganda and deception, which can easily spill over into real lives and ruin entire families, careers and even lives.
Technology has rapidly advance unlike anything else humans have ever done, but society itself has not. The social structures that once held together entire nations is being rapidly destroyed by the online fabrications promoted by algorithms and software engineers who have zero accountability. I will reiterate: None of this is real. The online world is an artificial alternate and false reality to the real. Software will never replace what is real and how the real can be experienced by humans. Humans and human society did not evolve to be replaced by technology. Software will never replace the true experience of being human, what it actually means to be alive, although they are certainly trying to do this with devastating results.
Much of the online interaction between people is nothing at all like what occurs in the real, not even close. Everything is fake and artificial. Fake outrage. Fake personas and fake personalities. Fake stories. Disinformation abounds. Everything is being marketed and advertised, screen time and clicks are heavily encouraged. Entire populations are being manipulated to respond online to whatever is being promoted as the latest ‘outrage’. It’s all fake and designed to keep you engaged and distracted online. Even at protests, you’ll see endless screens and smart phones being used to interact and record events. Allegedly, this is supposed to generate viewers and support, but in reality these movements almost always fizzle and fail.
Screen times has replaced real time. Humans are wired to adapt to technology but very poorly suited to understand its effects. Billions of humans are satisfied to experience the lives of others represented online versus engaging in their own lives or having their own experiences. Ignorant ‘influencers’ are encouraged to develop large followings of even more ignorant followers. Real knowledge and real-life experiences are being replaced with endless hours and wasted lives engaging in ‘screen time’.
Society is now far worse for all of this. Humans are forgetting how to interact with each other and in the real world. The society of today is nothing like the society of yesteryear and getting worse all of the time. Digital life has replaced real life. And we’re all just letting this happen.
Back when this was all starting to unfold, families stuck their kids in the backseats of their cars and shoved game toys in front of their faces. Now even small children have smart phones, interacting with each other through software applications and social media messaging. Thousands of apps designed to fully engage every human are freely available while the real world passes by right outside the car window. Billions of young humans are still stuck staring at screens for much of their lives. So are the adults, you’ll see them head down, constantly staring at a screen everywhere you look. It’s a human tragedy on an stupendous scale.
Hardly anybody seems to be aware of what is unfolding, or how lives have now become so tethered and so thoroughly manipulated. The artificial has replaced the real. The fake representation of existence has been digitized and replacement of the real continues at breakneck speed. Influencers are encouraged to slavishly support corporate agendas in exchange for free gifts. Viewers are lulled into a hopeless fantasies. Relaxation, entertainment and enjoyment now means sitting in front of a screen for countless hours every day.
This is endemic now. The real is being broadly ignored, unknown, unexperienced, and that’s exactly what ‘they’ want because it serves their interests so well. Billions of lives virtually controlled from birth through death in a fabricated reality of their design.
