The impacts on our misuse of time.

Last part, and shortest part of all ;)

If you followed me until there I bet you see where we are going.

The “always something better to do” behavior is the one I find the most preoccupying, because it permeates everything we do, and it drives our decisions towards the path of the least resistance with the highest rewards. Checking facebook, instagram , sending a message to a friend, watching what’s new in the news, we are all guilty of acting this way. It even became a marketing term, called “micro-moments” by Google.

Why we should bother.

Because these habits alters our attention, thus our presence. What will you remember of this moment? Your feed or the feelings exchanged with the people?

Let me not say it to you and let Simon Sinek tell it to you. 

(Look from 07:15 to 10:30min)

Family isn’t much of a pillar in capitalism, but now, the few members we have left around (compared to our extended family of before), have not the chance to enjoy us at our fullest 100%.

• Who haven’t seen this scene?

• How about friendship?

• Relationships?

If we are doing it with our closest relationships, how are we not supposed to do it with the rest of the world? The community we live in and grow.

If we are busy scrolling, binge watching, how are we going to notice that the world is changing? How are we supposed to “make a difference” if we are entertained passively and not out there?

Social media is not the cause of all this, just a pretty damn symptom. (Check BBC Film maker Adam curtis to tell you its source).

Because if we have always something better to do, what will our democracies become? Our families, or us, individuals?

Recent researchs have found that 66% of adults suffers from Nomophobia aka not staying with your phone for a certain period of time, even for few hours, leading even to panic attack.

There is actually a lot of things on the subject, but it seems that it will take some time to enter the collective consciousness.(Here some articles: The Atlantic?—?The independent and Techtimes and at last a book Alone Together.)

The worst is all of it is that this technology supposed to make us more connected, can lead to more loneliness and recently science said that social exclusion is as bad for us as cigarettes. (Source)

We adults have a conscious choice to make about how we use technology around us, but how about younger generations?

We need to educate and show them so they understand the risks and trade-offs involved. They never knew a world without internet, gif, memes, or facebook was like.

Because choosing the short solutions might work now, but it will have long term consequences, on you, us, on our society.

I will quote John Caciopio from this Atlantic article that resume perfectly our position:

“Facebook can be terrific, if we use it properly, It’s like a car. You can drive it to pick up your friends. Or you can drive alone.” 

But hasn’t the car increased loneliness? If cars created the suburbs, surely they also created isolation. “That’s because of how we use cars,” Cacioppo replies. “How we use these technologies can lead to more integration, rather than more isolation.”

Conclusion.

I believe in technology, I am myself a son of one, having played video and online computer games from my early childhood (90s stand up!) to the 2000’, to switch to online social and internet consumption habits, social messaging and finally to work with it.

There is no way back, but I believe there is a way for better, for quality, based on our humans specific preferences. The thing is we also need to acknowledge on what the system is built: Capitalism, one of the most powerful forces in recent history, that is in the decline yes, but remain at least the majority mental model on operating for everybody on this planet.

So I am not going to enter into a battle of we should not use technology because this is pointless, neither am I to say capitalism is bad (because it has proven to be very valuable).

But a general shared feeling is that it reached its limit and now we are in this transition phase.

This means we are going to be able to shape what’s next, just by being aware how things work and adapting our habits to what is important to us.

This happened for the organic and ethical movement, where whole industries are reshaping their production models because we, people, started to care.

Why shouldn’t it happens also for our tech and online world for us to regain time?

As Gandhi said —

“ In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”

So let’s shake the party by focusing on what is in our control.

Thanks for reading all this— Delighted you went that far, next article will explore ways and methods that smart people have found to cope with this technological pressure.

Please like, comment or share if you liked the content so others can benefits as well ;) If you are feeling adventurous, comment down below so we can exchange on the subject.

Alex ?.