Everyone is tied to their phone these days. You see it everywhere. Kids in a restaurant are attached to their devices. People get into an elevator and immediately pull out their phones. You even see groups of people out to dinner and they are all looking at their phones. How did we get here?
I am sure the social media companies knew this device would become a drug long before anyone talked about it. How could they not know the hand held video screen would not become a drug that seduced an entire generation? Older people who did not grow up with a phone used them as an extension of their brain to stay in touch or search for information. However, the generation that grew up with devices considers them to be a part of their body. If you take away my phone it is an inconvenience that is quickly forgotten. If you take away the phone of a young person, they act as if one of their arms was amputated. It has become a part of their body. It is a part of their brain because they grew up with its constant presence. My early development had nothing to do with a phone, their phone has become part of their development.
Do today’s young people no longer care about material things? All they really want is their phone or iPad. We grew up admiring a new bike, records, books, fun places. Eventually we learned to drive and became fascinated with cars. We were attached to actual physical objects that had value. Today, the only thing that has value is the iPhone. Nothing in it is material or real. They are just images, but the young people are addicted to these images. Do they even care about actual physical objects anymore? Do they love new cars or motorcycles? I do not think so.
They have also become addicted to immediate satisfaction. They do not think about consequences because they can just start the game over again. They need the immediate rush of dopamine from the short video sequences and do not care about working hard, saving money and then buying something. They do not care if some stupid thing they did is forever documented on the internet because nothing is real. Everything is just a picture or video on a phone.
As generations become more and more addicted to the phone they will not care about possessions, property or anything material. Everything they will worship a series of 1 and 0. Nothing will be real. History will be whatever their search pulls up. Books will not exist, records or CD’s will be gone. Everything will be on the hand held computer. This will be their normal. They will not own anything because anything can be borrowed or viewed through the phone.
Once this process is compete the government will have total control over their lives. The authorities will control history. The bible (if it even exists) and everything they know will be what they see on the internet. All banking will be through the phone and everyone will have a social score. This is already part of Chinese culture. All of your financial information will be tied to the internet. All of your possessions will be connected to the internet. Your activity will be monitored and if the authorities do not like your views or your opinions they can limit your contact with the rest of the world. They can limit your finances, your access to information, and your ability to travel. Imagine if your entire existence depended on where you can walk to. Online retailers can limit your access and you could actually disappear from the internet and essentially disappear from existence.
We all allowed this process to occur. Children are raised by electronic media and young adults date by electronic media. Ownership will be eliminated and your existence will be limited to your presence on the internet. The government will control history and your social score will determine where you can go and who you can communicate with. Was this the plan of silicone valley and the government all along? And then they decided everything will be run by artificial general intelligence. Will our physical bodies even exist anymore or will everyone just download to the internet and create a digital universe? Maybe it has already happened.