It is not the longest life, but the one with the greatest number of curiosities – resolved or not – that is looked at out of routine in indifference. “It is not that we have little time, but that we lose most of it,” says Seneca, who more than two thousand years ago recorded one of the great vices of man, which to the surprise of Darwin – and anyone who intends to understand the step of time as an evolutionary act – it remains in force: letting time pass with an indolence that confuses.
It may be fear, as opposed to fear, that petrifies the adventure of the species assuming that with obscene amounts of information it will have something to occupy itself with. At least to kill time.
One might also think that this information took the form of the totem with which the fear of the night, eclipses and lightning was lost, and that it is now used effectively to mitigate loneliness, depression and the inability to just be. Just googling it to pretend to grab it.
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With this direction of thought, the overwhelming sum of information and the desire to spend time in whatever it is, the internet has become the temple to atone for anxiety and carelessness. By itself, the name of the study that shows that we already waste more time online than offline, induces it: “Media Essentials 2021”.
Connection kills generation gap
Nearly 12 thousand cases were reviewed in 13 Latin American countries to confirm that digital consumption has already surpassed offline, even in generations that remained reluctant. What was the motivation for the change? Advertise weakness in the name of curiosity: The online world leaves indecisive analogues increasingly disconnected and heartbroken.
We are — and not — borders. Being 13 years old represented a difference, five years ago, with those of 59, in terms of connectivity and digital life. Research by IMS Internet Media Services confirms that it takes us longer to deny the use of a social network twice than to see who is where, saying what.
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What can be a virtue, to stay stoically assiduous to a Nokia 2G, or even better: to a public telephone, it is not only a museum case, but something obsolete and inoperative. Whoever wanted to live like this would have to found a commune and disconnect away from all temptation.
In the midst of a pandemic – with TV and radio connected, newspapers and magazines operating in real time and slowing down the pace of print operations – the consulting firm IMS accuses that 2021 is the year of intergenerational consolidation of digital media .
And to say of the aforementioned study, the prime time It is no longer the night, but from 6 to 11 AM, from 3 to 6 PM and from 8 to 10 PM, that is, morning, afternoon and night. Running out of internet today is equivalent to entering a dark cave and turning to see the thumb.
The truth is that we do not know how to survive in silence: even in a quarantine it is essential to tell one’s own anecdote. The need for entertainment is more efficient than a vaccine if it keeps us distracted. To young and old.
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After offline loss
The future is announced in conferences that boast more and better megapixels with less weight and new colors on cell phones. We spend so much life with them, without even discussing the marginality into which they throw us.
And today, the most important thing happens through a screen: either by pandemic or infodemic. Friends, news and recreation live, as soon as “On” is pressed, without feeling the appreciation of the neighbor who rests his arm on his shoulder on his back, without letting himself be carried away by the irreplaceable smell of ink and without the ease that only the space provides by allowing a group of people dedicated to sharing.
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But the loss often leads to new encounters. Wandering around the living room or bathroom can lead to encountering imagination as a vital method. Traveling, that good habit to get rid of other bad ones, is also done without leaving home: if the purpose was to explore the reaches as a way to apprehend the world (and oneself), it is enough to do a simple exercise of introspection.
Attention, that ingredient that allows you to turn to see yourself to recognize differences with inert objects, is the only ingredient that does not hesitate – being offline or online – in understanding that an experience has a significant scope and that raising the quality of the questions is not responsibility of the media, only of the true protagonist. Just as Seneca put it, still in an analogous way.
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Eduardo Navarrete specializes in Editorial Management, Innovation and User Experience *
Twitter: @elnavarrete
The opinions expressed are solely the responsibility of their authors and are completely independent of the position and editorial line of Forbes Mexico.