In the growing age of digital and social media, the products that were supposed to bring us together are becoming the stakes that drive us apart. With the ".com" boom from the 90's developing into every conspiracy theorist nightmare, the other side of the sword is the intimate connections we have are now with what devices are in our hands.
According to the world bank approximately 95% per 100 people(1) are on the web and approximately 73% on social media(2) in the United States. Having the worlds worth of knowledge and discovery at our very fingertips can have it positive swings, the negatives though can be dire. Kind of like trying to find what you want while having to block out noise coming from every direction. That's what a lot of it is, just noise to drown you out so you can buy the quiet way back.
The digital era is a quick moving one to this day. With the rise of AI integration we are seemingly being projected into an unknown world without a bottom, one where perfection prevails and the machine is the only answer to keep up. What's the answer on the newly designed world where only perfection is shown? Where the only way to win is to become a machine? DON'T, we are being sold to live a life of fabrication behind a backlit screen so our metrics can be sold to the highest bidder. The way back to where we started to lose our touch is to start shedding the mask we have been wearing, at least to the point where the real beauty can start to shine; the beauty of just being yourself.
Written with X's & O's not 1's & 0's,
-Elrod Van Altizer
“A bottom-up thing that anyone can do is making yourself available to develop some kind of relationship with someone different than you,” she says. “Develop an interpersonal bond, and that positive feeling might generalize to others, like the person you’re interacting with. It requires getting out of your comfort zone, but it’s probably the most fruitful way to go forward.” - Yuen J. Huo - UCLA(3)
Sources :
(1) fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ITNETUSERP2USA
(2) https://soax.com/research/what-percentage-of-americans-use-social-media
(3) https://newsroom.ucla.edu/magazine/researchers-science-human-connection-psychology-neurobiology-sociology-marriage