Lg & Digital media - Digital media, boon or bane?

To put it simply, I am a granny when it comes to Information Technologies (IT). Fifty years ago when grannies today were hippies then, who really cares about IT anyway? Friends meet in cafes to catch up, pen pals wait patiently by the mail box for their weekly letters, novel fans loyally purchase volumes of books from borders while girlfriends go to the nearest mall to shop for apparels. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that these activities are non-existent today; people are just doing things in a less ‘authentic’ or rather conventional fashion anymore. And why is that so? If you are the slightest bit of hesitant to this question then you’re probably one of those who wouldn’t be bothered about what’s going on in the “Global Village”. 

Yes the internet has been a marvelous invention and one of the best by far, but having access to the most beautiful Olympic pool doesn’t necessarily make you Michel Phelps. Or does it? Now, this is debatable, but what is the rationale of making my point? I doubt any of you would be interested how I survived without Twitter or Instagram. More importantly, WHY did I not pick up what most peeps in my generation would consider the norm? Not that I am ostracized for being slightly less sophisticated, even though superficial peers do tease me once in awhile. 

Retrospectively, people don’t fix their eyes on screens as much thus giving them more reason and opportunities to go outdoors. Therefore, our parents had better eyesight than we do, maybe because they had less money to obtain spectacles in the first place, but Bloom, Friedmann & Chuck (2010) have found an increasing trend of myopia, especially in the recent two decades. This is the time when the computer and World Wide Web became the crux of most societies. In fact, I will not be surprise if in another century down the road, societal progression leads to evolution of our optic genes. 

Well, some people call me a health freak, some call me a paranoid. But honestly, how many lives does each of us have? If I was a cat, probably these issues would weigh 9 times less. Unfortunately, God is fair and I only have a pair of precious eyes which I certainly wish to keep. With more papers validating the negative effects of focusing too much on computers, it’s hard not to stick to the science. Yet it seems many still choose to turn a blind eye on the truth.

Then again, we can’t exactly blame them can we? Humans are innately tuned to seek comfort in believing what others do or advocating ideas that majority supports, in order to appear alike and accepted. One glance at the passengers in a typical MTR, we see at least 4 out of 10 people occupied with their electronic devices. People stop talking to strangers in close proximity, all heads and eyes glued at a 45 degree angle to their phones, impatience sets in alongside high speed processing IT and virtues of tolerance are lost in the midst of such transmissions. Anger is translated from the quicker pace of life expected of sophistication, particularly in the later generations.

 

To make matters worse, the boom in social media created such a vast impact on the world that it is almost unstoppable. People don’t exploit the internet for mere research or entertainment, huge amount of socialization occurs primarily on Facebook, Whatssap, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Myspace, Weibo, forums or even blogs (just to name a few). At present, due to all these virtual mediums, it’s even more torturous to disconnect from our computers or mobile phones. Projects are continually discussed on the net, professors broadcast information via emails, bosses post work related items on company’s websites or forums; essentially computers dictates more than half of our daily schedule! 

Don’t you find it astounding how the world is, I wouldn’t even say gradually, transforming into a cyber reality. I’m not sure if I am like the rest, going to sing praises towards technological advancements. No doubt life is more convenient and comfortable, but isn’t anyone heartbroken that we are losing and neglecting so much of Mother Nature? The intrinsic mechanisms of our spoken and body language were built upon man’s physical interactions, written forms only emerge much later with modernity. So then why did the society approved of abandoning verbal communication in so many aspects?

In case you are wondering, I’m not an orthodox radical, just an individual who is concern with the future of humanity’s “raw-ness”. Social networks and the WWW are towering over us to an unprecedented extent. Is it me or does anyone similarly feel suffocated in the midst of attaining our narrow vision goal of making big money? Come on, what can excessive wealth help us do? Reserve the best seat in paradise? But under the condition of a heaving stress packed Earthly life, filled with related diseases? 

If that’s the ticket to heaven, I can’t imagine the one to hell.

 

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Bloom, R.I., Friedmann, I.B., Chuck, R.S., (2010). Increasing rates of myopia: the long view. Curr. Opin. Ophthalmol. Article in Press.