Offline Life Remains Unchanged

In the last decade, I think the most meaningful way that everyday life has changed has been the way that so many experiences are catered toward becoming online ordeals.  We’ve phased out physical movies and music for streaming services, and companies have tried again and again to do the same with video games.  It has become increasingly more convenient to shop online, even for things as fundamental as food.  Many choose to order on a smartphone or a digital kiosk instead of speaking to a worker at a counter, when presented with the opportunity.  Basic needs are delivered to your doorstep after being prepared for purchase almost entirely by a complex series of algorithms, and access is granted after a few leisurely taps.  The vast majority of the developed world’s population is reachable on so many pieces of contemporary technology which are engineered to hold your attention captive.  The current era is one of vast interconnectivity, convenience, and elevated function.  It is a plague.

At risk of sounding old, I think the massive shift to an online framework for nearly everything life offers is not a net gain for society as a whole.  Accessibility and function are important to make ends meet for many, yes, but at what cost?  The internet has made the concept of accessibility creep into a demand for attention.  The online world has anything you’d ever want, and specific sectors of technology have begun legitimately vying for control over every single facet of life.  Take the Apple ecosystem, for instance.  A company first known for creating some of the best computational workstations now sells a computer for your desktop, your backpack, your tote bag, your pocket, your wrist, and even your very eyes.  On each of these computers is a series of interconnected applications and functions which serve as your main form of communication, your wallet, your access to food, your access to every form of entertainment, and even your main outlet of creativity.  The fluidity and accessibility of these functions is fantastic, no doubt.  However, it serves to flatten the entirety of the human experience to a collection of homogenized visuals on a smaller collection of screens, for profit.

Of course, it is impossible to live the entirety of your life within an ecosystem such as this.  Whether due to necessity or accident, you end up unplugged.  Sometimes the battery to one of these devices dies, or there’s a chore or task to take care of somewhere where your wireless earbuds don’t reach.  Yet, after it’s over, the default choice for so many is to plug back in.  Even being someone who spends a lot of time with these digital experiences, I find this to be tragic.  Life isn’t meant to be lived within the framework of a few screens, conducted by a few corporations, and human interaction isn’t meant to be experienced via snippets of text from hundreds of anonymous individuals.  The media I spend so much time consuming means next to nothing to me if I can’t share it with real people I know and love, ideally face to face.  The interconnectedness of the contemporary internet is a genuine life saver to me, as none of my friends live in my city, and my partner lives 2500 miles away.  But I find myself despising these experiences more and more, especially when the interconnectivity isn’t serving to bring me closer to or foster interactions with someone I love.

The solution?

Go outside.

I know this is not a unique sentiment.  In fact, if I’m not careful with how surprised I sound when I say “going outside is good,” I might seem like I need a shower.  But my point isn’t just that it’s good to go outside, I mean to draw attention to the fact that it’s… unchanged.  Maybe a decade isn’t long enough to recognize meaningful change in the way the visual and functional languages of our world exist, but I don’t know any better.  My understanding from learning about various times in history is that influences and dynamics of reality change.  But removing myself from everything that isn’t “real,” spending time considering the default experiences present when access to smart devices is revoked, I find that the world at large functions just the same way I remember it did in 2015.

I don’t mean this in a typical nostalgic, rose-tinted-glass view of my childhood years either.  I appreciate it to an extent, but why is it that nothing has changed?  Why is it that so many cars I see on the road are still from the early 2010s and still have yellowed headlights?  Why is it that when I walk through the mall, it looks exactly the same, and it’s still uncomfortably chilly inside?  I find myself dealing with nearly identical issues to the ones I witnessed during my childhood.  There’s still weeds poking out of the driveway on a relentlessly hot day.  In a quite frustrating way, the same problems our government was refusing to solve remain problematic.    I still can’t afford a lot of the things I want, the older people in my life remain grumpy and stubborn.  When I bring my little sisters to the same elementary school I went to, there’s a new slide on the playground, but the back gate creaks in the same exact way I remembered.  Those kiosks I mentioned before have made their way into a lot of fast food establishments, but the interiors are just as awkwardly lit and unsanitary as they were a decade ago.  The broken down buildings and town near the beach my aunt and uncle were married at are the exact same as they are in the old photos.

These things I’ve begun to recognize are equal parts comforting and eerie.  The comfort comes from a sense of normalcy, but the unease from a sense that I’m witnessing a live apocalypse.  I feel like so much of the world I see outside has been left behind for the sake of the progress of the digital world, and I am left in a world without upkeep or progression.  I have an inkling that I recognize this due to a heavy dosage of confirmation bias, and though a google search reveals others that have considered the same things recently, at least this isn’t a thought that was planted in my head by an algorithm.  I thought this for the first time alone in my car, putting a CD into the stereo like a caveman.  I admit that there’s some parts of the world I see that aren’t meant to change, and wouldn’t even if the internet ceased to exist.  Regardless of what I think should change or not, it’s the world I live in.  And so far, I’ve conveniently neglected to mention all of the benefits that come from still living in 2015.

Nearly everything I loved as a child is still there to be loved.  I can still take the two hour drive to Reno to play split screen video games with my cousin on his PS3 if I so choose.  I get to take my little sisters to the same play structures I loved at their age.  The same clothes are available at the same thrift stores, I have no new tools I need to learn to use to be able to cook the same foods I still love.  My grandma’s landline still works, and so does the old box TV I mentioned earlier.  Nothing is stopping me from sitting in the waiting room at the dentist with a DS Lite in my hands.  Nothing is really stopping me from doing anything that was readily available in 2015, just like putting that CD in the stereo.  

Not everyone can unplug from contemporary technology constantly.  I know I can’t, that’d mean losing meaningful connection to people I care about.  And yes, there are simple conveniences afforded by the digital age that I still indulge in even if they aren’t necessarily required in my day-to-day life.  But I really enjoy that I truly have no barriers to letting it go for awhile.  My phone is optional the same way the digital kiosks are.  I recommend giving it a try.