The United States, locked in the kind of twilight disconnect that grips dying empires, is a country entranced by illusions. It spends its emotional and intellectual energy on the trivial and the absurd. It is captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble…
arrive home from work, drained and empty. Too tired for human interaction, I press the buttons on the remote and stare blankly into the big TV box. It’s not long before the commercials and endless parade of product placements overwhelm my defenses and penetrate my mind. Every detail of every message is meticulously calculated, designed to be repetitive and hypnotic, played over and over until the mindfuck finally kicks. In. My head is now filled with fatuous desire. Fast forward. Like a junkie on a comedown, I stumble into the sterile mall corridors as if in some kind of trance. The motley group of shoppers surrounding me, all the same – glazed eyes, blank stares, faces twisted into ugly masks of want. We are an army of zombies…
The back cover of the latest Adbusters magazine I got in the mail
The world is losing its magic. The rivers are no longer deities and the Nymphs that Socrates knew were on his walk with Phaedrus are not acknowledged anymore. Today we live in a strictly material world, a boring world, a scientific world where rocks are rocks and nature is man-made. Beautiful vistas are just that – beautiful, worthy of a picture but no longer a fountain of sublime transcendental glimmers. And yet, despite closing ourselves to the immaterial and denying the mystery of existence, the sable shadow still haunts us. So, we keep it at bay with new diversions and dazzling distractions….
Digital Detox Week ~ April 19-25, 2010
Below is a great email I received from AdBusters regarding Digital Detox Week that is coming up this next week. I plan on doing some digital detoxing myself and wanted to share the email with all who may be interested.
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Hey Jammers and Creatives,
We are all living through the digital revolution, an amazing, exciting time where knowledge is free and the world is at our fingertips. But there is a dark side to our digital emancipation. Jumping brain syndrome, decreased creativity, isolation and depression all stem from an overload of instantly accessible media.
Next week during Digital Detox Week we urge you to take some time to pull back from the wired world and assess the damage. Rethink your love affair with technology, stop obsessing over your virtual life, get outside and reignite your relationships with each other. You don’t have to go cold turkey on the screens in your life – we won’t. Simply take a few small steps away from them every day.
To help prepare you for this challenge here are links to some of the most inspiring mental environmental stories we’ve run recently:
The End of Childhood
Children who spend more time inside than in the wilderness experience poorer health in adulthood. We must let them roam free.
Virtual Morality
As videogames create better, more immersive models of reality, are we free to do anything we want in a virtual world, or are some things still inherently wrong?
Quit Facebook
The decision to destroy my carefully built-up virtual image came as a result of wanting to enhance my profile.
The Era of Simulation
Consequences of a digital revolution.
Happy Detoxing,
The Adbusters Team
