The Digital Age will be the Death of Us

Recently, on my youtube channel, I received a request from another youtube user to subscribe to their channel because they "want to be a youtube star." I watched a portion of one of the individual's videos and as I was viewing it I noticed I was becoming more and more irritated with what I was watching. As an artist, I was critically analyzing the piece and I thought the graphic aspect was done well while the self-centered/reflective aspect was annoyingly asinine, especially given the lack of genuine humor emitting from what appeared to be a self-deprecating monologue. What bothered me most was an attempt at humor which was completely absent. In all fairness, I should provide a link to the user's channel to let you the reader formulate your own opinion, but I don't want to boost the person's view count allowing them to become a "youtube" star, nor do I want to contribute to making them a "youtube" star.

Why, you ask?

Completely fair question. The digital age has afforded us a luxury that society was completely devoid of until the mid- to late 1990s. With the advent of consumer grade/quality technology, average Americans, who never before possessed knowledge of media technology & theory, have inundated the Internet with gratuitously vapid digital media. As an artist schooled in the foundational arts (sculpture, photography, printmaking, drawing, painting, et cetera), I have been fortunate to study the masters in all disciplines getting a broad and vast education. This cannot be said with everyone bombarding the Internet with their vacuous digital media. Not only is the Internet a place guilty of aiding in the degeneration of America and the world, but television is at it in a more insidious manner. Reality TV has become a bastion for the imbecilic, the idiotic and the ignorant. What's more disturbing is that people watch these shows, some for the escapist reward that a half hour or an hour episode provides, but others watch these shows because their lives offer them no stimulation, no interest and they must feast on the moral turpitude these shows simulate for them to feel better about themselves. What people fail to understand is that Reality TV is only simulacra, but with the influx of some new technological gadget every week or so, it is all that is offered to provide some semblance of solace.

This is why the Digital Age will be the Death of Us. Not many people can remember a phone number aside from 9-1-1 anymore, I admittedly being one of them. I feel for the generations growing up within the Digital Age that will have no grounding in the older analog forms media was once. I not only feel for them, I fear for them. Yes, our lives and world are changing. It can be argued for better or for worse, but evolving has never been easy, just ask the old knuckle draggers and T-Rex. I remember a child that was learning how to tell time, unfortunately their parent taught them on a digital clock and when they were in a house with an analog clock they were completely at a loss. They couldn't fathom why the clock didn't tell them the time, or more accurately, why they couldn't tell time with the analog clock. This is but one example of what the Digital Age is doing to us. I am neither for or against the Digital Age per se, if I had to make a choice I'd go back to the Analog Age. We have become such a hurried and impersonal species with digital technology that I long for the days when my hand didn't cramp from filling out a check, ironic enough I know that I am blogging. I don't dislike the Digital Age, I have created some wonderful work digitally. It's the coming generations that I worry about, needlessly probably, but I still worry, they will have no recollection of things analog only what is written about them in history books or other texts and tomes. They will be borne into a world with a digital nipple in their mouths and they will be none the wiser. But, with that said, if digital technology continues to physically separate instead of connect individuals, then our species will definitely fall victim to our own constructs. We may evolve into something altogether different and adaptable to technology without the need for that physical connectivity, but as a species that is social, becoming anti- or unsocial does not seem to be part of the greater equation.