Sunday 24 July 2016

Is Swiping Right All That Is Left?

In my short, twenty years of life so many things have changed. I feel like every day I wake up to an "out with the old, in with the new" scenario happening. Whether it is technology, social medias, general day to day things. It's all evolving. I don't like it.
Call me nostalgic but I'd love to go back in time to my parent's generation - or even my grandparent's generation - simply for the experience, because these days we are losing so much. It's sad.

When I was 14 Mum and Dad bought me my first cellphone; a small Samsung flip-phone. Back in the days where the camera wasn't too great and if I accidentally clicked onto the internet or started to video call somebody, I would panic for the sake of the phone bill my parents were paying! However after a year or so I eventually joined the smart-phone ownership society. I was determined that I would use the phone as just that, a phone, but within a week I was connected to the WiFi system, the Facebook app was downloaded and I had worked my way around checking and writing emails on the small screen too. I'm sure my poor desktop computer must've felt abandoned and useless by this stage.

When I was younger my days were filled with writing, real writing - pencil to paper. Because Mum enjoyed writing, she taught us. Writing stories, writing letters to family, everything we did we wrote it down. Soon I would have four or five different penpals around the country, a reply letter on the go at any stage in time. It was how I got to know people and learned about their different lives. It got to the point where I was looking forward to the mail being delivered in the hope that somebody would have replied. Eventually some of them would change and start writing emails or texting instead, however I no longer have any letters to write as we're all friends on Facebook now - why would we need to?
The only writing I manage these days is if I keep up with my own personal diary, sitting by my second story window and watching the world outside while I consider what to write down. I can't do it for very long before my hand aches, because holding a pen isn't a common thing to do these days. Kids of this new generation are going to lose the ability and art of writing with schools now requiring them to bring their own devices to do their schooling on. In another 20 years time, will they still make pens and paper? It's a terrifying thought!

So while we've become so "connected" to everyone in our lives through the social medias, we have become exceptionally disconnected. Almost every day someone says to me that I "really must join Tinder..." because apparently this is the new normal. We don't know how to go out into the world and meet people anymore, so instead we sit with our nose glued to the smart phone, scrolling through the local singles and deciding if they're suitable. We may as well be meaninglessly wandering the isles of a supermarket and choosing which brand to put in the trolley, because swiping right is just the same sort of snap-bang decision making.
If I ever have kids I don't want them to ask me how I met future husband and have to reply somewhere along the lines of, "Oh you know, I swiped right when I saw him on Tinder and we 'matched up'...there were a whole heap of other guys who I also matched up with, but I found him the least annoying...!" I mean, honestly. Sure I know it works for other people, but I'm determined that this time around I will successfully stay clear of this new "normal" ritual in the life of my generation.

It seems ridiculous but I really want to go back to my parent's or grandparent's time where things were so much different. I want to learn how to drive in a car with only front seat belts and bench seats, taking pictures in black and white, writing letters with nice fountain pens and actually being a part of the world. Rather than sitting here behind my computer screen, typing on a computer that I hardly ever use because my phone does everything for me and worrying that something I do or say might get me in trouble for being too politically incorrect for my day and age.
I don't want to be buzzing around in a flying drone car that operates itself by reading my mind by the time I'm retired. Who's to say that advancing technology isn't going to take us there?

We've become so antisocial and even though we keep talking about it being an issue, this is where the majority push us to stay. They're even thinking of creating an app to pay for your petrol at fuel stations - so that you no longer need to go inside the building to the counter to pay for it, simply because it is inconvenient and takes time. Imagine spending a minute or two of your life, paying for fuel and talking to someone behind the counter being labelled as inconvenient. This is where life is going, they say I have to get used to it but I don't know how I can.

6 comments:

  1. Yay!!! I'm not the only mutant in this world...
    Honestly, I actually agree with pretty much every word. When My Dad finished at primary school, he got one of the flashest graduation presents around, a fountain pen! Now, you can expect a $100 iTunes card.
    And what about Friday Night Fish and Chips on The Beach? Used to be a family ritual, EVERYONE went and had fish and chips on the beach on Friday nights, you'd have hundreds of families lining the beaches, kids playing together, the adults talking about whatever adults talk about, a word called "socializing". We still do that, of course. We just use the Apps for it, the Social Media Apps.

    Okay, I don't want to bring up Israel in every post for the next 10 years, but one thing that got me was our tour bus. It had WiFi. You have a bunch of teenagers driving round a foreign land for the first time in their lives, and instead of looking out the window and ravenously drinking in the scenery, they sit with faces glued to screens, updating their Facebook status or checking their feed or whatever...

    But yeah, you are not alone in thinking that, technology is taking over our lives to a ridiculous extent...

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    1. Haha you're calling me a mutant?! Lol thanks :P you're calling yourself a mutant, yeah I already knew that ;)

      We never did Friday night fish and chips at the beach, but I can imagine it would be quite a neat tradition to get into with your good mates who live in the area...most of my friends live at opposite ends of the country so it wouldn't work too well...

      Friday nights on the beach playing Pokemon is the new thing...

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  2. Yes I agree, as much as I used to want all the latest technology, we've lost so much by allowing it to replace real-life interaction and relationships. I know snail mail is slow (by today's standards) and expensive, so I wouldn't go back to relying on it for communication, but I have sent a few more things that way recently, because there's just something special about receiving something in the post. I think, anyway ;) I was thinking about putting something on Instagram, but now that you've brought it to the blogosphere, maybe I'll do something here as well . . . hmmm.

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    1. These days I love getting something by snail mail, it's so unusual:)

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  3. If you leave letters in the mailbox overnight it is literally snail mail ��

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    1. Haha, true that!!! I always wonder what our mailman must think, seeing pellets of snail pellet lying in our mailbox from time to time... :P

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