Social Media?

There are no "Social Media" - there only are "Social Creatures". The picture, in my humble opinion, captures well the essence of online addiction, of the worst that the "web 2.0" has brought. People cocooning at home, spending hours upon hours in front of computer screens, losing track of time - and their very life, allowing themselves to be tracked and traced, controlled and programmed. Our current world already is far beyond the wildest nightmares of visionaries like George Orwell. We live in a time where the vast majority of the human populace allows themselves to be reduced to a single main role: that of the mass consumer. Mass consumption of junk food for the brain. I strongly believe we are in a process of giving up what makes us human: The technology guru and multi billionaire Elon Musk recently demanded we should quickly develop direct brain to computer interfaces, because otherwise humans could not keep up with the pace of technological development. It seems I misunderstood something, as I always thought machines - as well as all economic activity - should serve only one single purpose: To guarantee and possibly improve our livelihood. Apparently I was wrong and we already have joined an age beyond the "anthropocene" proposed by climatologist Jim Hansen. Is this the age of the "Mechanocene" already? Total submission under the machines, systems, mechanisms we once created? A life devoted to feeding the machine, to the ever increasing consumption and production of useless waste with the soul purpose to increase numerical digits somewhere deep inside of protected computer memories?

The photograph is part of the Video of the same name. See there for more thoughts.