Perceptual Disconnect

Do you think people are realistic today? Are their perceptions true to the reality? I am not sure it is so as much as in former times, specifically, before the technology took over human attention spans. Too, I do not think many people ever ask those questions. They believe they live in the world at large and see it fully, but it might be that most of us have restricted our world view to fit the technology that has addicted humanity.

One example of this perceptual deficit is reality TV and the rest of the ilk that has bombard and enthrall so many of us. The great irony of Reality TV is that it has so obscured what reality actually is that we can not distinguish between reality and the mind numbing TV presentations of fakery and illusion that assault us in our mediums and represent themselves falsely. In a sense, today the dilettante has become the expert and the expert an anomaly, because our obsession with technology doesn't permit us to see clearly the difference between the two.

Kids and many adults today have created a world of their own making centered around electronic technology, a much smaller and much less enriching world than that of the pre electronic medium technology age. Being "connected" today means not knowing and participating in the world at large, but rather confining oneself to a few people and places and things who are also attached to the addicted mediums. I find that disturbing, for if we can not understand and do not care about the wide world it can be more easily manipulated by those who can and who want to shape it for only their own benefit. One must first be connected to the entire environment (the whole world) before connecting to a smaller one (the "circle" of friends and stimuli).

Perhaps the reason so many baffling judgments rule the world today is that we just don't know any better when making serious choices. It's why every American kid knows who Lady Gaga is, her act and her life, and so few know the names of any of the names of people in the community who really do impact their lives importantly. If we cast aside all TV's, cell phones, I pods, Blackberries and the rest of the adult toys that have enslaved our attention, might we not see clearly again?

The technology itself is not bad, but the etiquette for use was never written and adults instead are acting like children in a room full of cookies. They are gorging it and destroying their ability to find a more intelligent meaning to life. One can not exist on cell phones alone.