I hate to say it
I really hate to say it!

But i will say it anyway:

SMARTPHONES ARE OPIUM FOR THE PEOPLE

I admit it: i loved my smartphone while i had one
for the longest time i had resisted to get one
but then …
I fell in love very quickly!

The flexibility that all those apps gave me!
To do all kinds of things that were really practical.
And i could do them on the go!

Instant communication , sending pictures, videos
listening to all my music on the road
finding my way thru maps, my bus schedule, my canceled flights
a hundred things possible with this little machine …

And then it broke
And i lived on

Nowadays i walk around and i see people walking by with their eyes glued to their phone
Couples, families sitting in the restaurant, each staring at their own little screen
Chatting with folks far away but not with the people on their table

i see awkward teenagers on a date
playing bored, pretending to get Whatsup messages
probably to avoid the awkwardness of their feelings

i see young people on a beautiful beach reading nonsense Facebook messages
watching cat videos while there are birds & butterflies and glorious waves all around

and i could go on and on about what has become of the great promise of connectivity that we have been dreaming about when the internet was young
when personal computing was just taking off
when cell phones were like bricks
and every thing digital was the future

now we see what it has been leading to …
now we know that maybe ninety percent of all email traffic is Spam
1.4 million criminal hack attacks per year estimated
and personal information is stolen on a massive scale
like the 500 million user’s personal data in the Yahoo hack
passwords, credit card numbers, addresses …

thats criminals! you say?
Well, Facebook is not really stealing your data, you are feeding this moloch with every little bit of your life voluntarilyly …
and they are selling it to the advertisers ; D
smart guys!  great business model

Maybe we should not talk about Google, because i like to Google : {

What the f%#*!
all of that sounds really dark & depressing!

But unfortunately thats not the end of my reflections.

I see kids loosing all ability to see the world around them
to sense what is in the air
to feel the people next to themselves
to see reality as it is emerging in real time

I see people loosing all impetus to create things
because it is all served in a second, all available for personal entertainment

i see the walls going up in the metro or the bus
because people have the focus on their machines
no more need to look the next human being in the face

I see everyone loosing the ability to focus & stay focussed
to have patience and see things evolve
because the next best thing is just a click away
and everything is so at your fingertips that it creates a continuous fog of pieces of information
the coherence gets lost, no integration or assimilation occurs

The promise of personal computing & the internet to empower the individual in self-expression
to give them tools to create, give them audiences to distribute their art & creations
it has for the most part turned in on itself
and morphed into a immense machine of consumption, of entertainment
of self-glorification and superficiality

I guess thats the blessing & the curse of technology, of the groundbreaking innovations of mankind:

if not used wisely and with an ethical intent
technology sooner than later turns from the blessing into the curse
and there seems to be no way out

because technology also does one thing:
it creates addictions of convenience

soon you are hooked …

… so here i am
without my smart cutting edge smartphone
the one with the best apps that i could find (for free ; )

but hey!
i am still alive!
i am still the same person i have been before
i still manage to get thru my day

i am still … happy

God bless my Smartphone
May it rest in Peace

; D

???