A few days ago I saw a father and his two baby boys sharing an interesting scene. The kids were playing happily all around him, making noises, and trying to get his attention. The father, though, had his total attention focused on his Iphone. My curiosity was stronger than me, and I found a way to get closer to see what a hell was so important in that phone: it was Candy Crush.
Often on (more frequently that I would like) I see couples sitting on restaurants waiting for their food. Instead of talking to each other, each one of them is checking their own Instagram. It’s not rare to see entire families checking their Facebook’s news feeds. Or then, a group of friends hanging out together, each one of them staring at that bright and addicting device: posting pictures, tagging friends, reading comments, looking for likes, giving random likes, swiping out photos on Tinder (or Grindr, depending on your sexual orientation), using Snapchat to send silly selfies to a bunch of people, or connecting Facetime to talk to someone who is not there.
The fact that I’ve just realized that my mother would not understand many of the words I used in the previous paragraph is a clear sign of how the world is changing very fast (and in a very weird way). So did it take only one generation for our habits to change so drastically? Doesn’t it scare you when you think of what is coming next?
I know you have probably seen these scenes too, of people together, but not actually together because everybody is busy with this online world. But have you ever wondered why? Why do we feel we need to post a picture with hashtags before going to a party, instead of just going to the party? Why do we need to instagram our food, instead of just eating it? Why do we use our phones to make a video of the concert that we paid to watch it live?
Have you ever felt surprised when someone called you instead of texting you? Isn’t it ironic that you feel that way when your phone rings? A phone, which was specifically designed for phone calls when invented years ago.
It seems to me that all of these are symptoms of an invisible disease of a generation, who is connected all the time, and, at the same time, is the most disconnected of all.
Today, I don’t have ideas of happy solutions to propose in the last paragraph of this column. Today, instead of thinking of answers, I could only think of questions. But luckily, I might have at least been able to make you think too.
