alone in a world of cyberconnectivity.
patrick di rito | June 11th, 2012
The noise was deafening. The visuals more than the eye could handle. The space expansive but silent. The density overwhelming. The crowds pushed in from all sides. Communication was primary. But no one spoke. Visuals were everything but no one looked. The lulling trance of the digital screen played seductively across the faces of every patron. This is the 21st century café. The vestiges of social orders playing across everyone’s minds. Refusing to browse the internet in seclusion, they interact with millions with almost perfect anonymity.
No one dare engage with another human. They had long forgotten how. Introductions happened through the construct of the machine. Relationships almost never happened in person. Real time was dependent only on internet connection. Sleep and sleeplessness morphing into a perpetual state of on. No one dared sleep for they may miss out. Nothing happened but everyone watching. Banality dulls the mind and the slow years of an eventless past induces complacency. The future was accepted without questioning. Depression, seclusion, abandonment are accepted with perfect apathy.
How do you engage a world whose only reality is the digital; trained to ignore phenomena of the real world as an irritating distractions?
The permutation of the quintessential architecture of the collective, the parisian café, into a space of isolation has begun. The space reserved for enjoying blended brews in the company of friends and amiable strangers has been destroyed by the rampant spread of complementary internet. Seclusion dominates this realm. Mainstream chains forge the way for smaller quaint cafes.
The profusion of the portable connectable device creates a continuous connection. Never separated for more than a few minutes, the brain becomes overrun with meaningless updates. The social convention of ignoring persons in the real world in favor of the digital is all but accepted.
We are alone in a world of cybernetworking.
[ cafe, communication, cyberconnectivity, digital, Future, interent, isolation, reality, virtual, zombie ]
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