The growth of the internet, highly advanced technologies and imitated communication has rotated our existence on its axis by installing a ‘microchip’ of online activity at the back of our brain. We have come to a realisation that Google is the only ‘place’, which is capable to create a moment’s completeness, the only place which is able to take us somewhere better than we truly are and the only place that is capable to have an answer to all our questions and thoughts.
Browsing through thousands and millions of online forums, discussions and social media comments leaves each user with doubt, insecurities and confusion.
Due to the infinite number of advice and choices the internet is able to provide, all we are left with is ‘what can we do’ and not what we want to do, which is one of the main causes leading to today’s unhappiness among human beings.
We came to a point where we are not able to answer our own thoughts anymore, we ask the internet.
As soon as we open our eyes, pressing your phone’s home button is the first thing that comes to mind, leaving us paralysed with a new journey of online activity throughout the day. Do you need a new pair of sneakers? Head over to the Adidas website. A vacation? ‘The world’s best places to visit in 2018-19’ comes up as the first link to click on, having 30 beautiful places available for us to travel to, although we always come to the same choice; none.
Oh, what a beautiful pair of jeans I just saw on Instagram, heading over to Asos and to our discovery, they’re all so beautiful in those new styles and ripped threading leading to the same conclusion; none.
Due to the infinite number of advice and choices the internet is able to provide, all we are left with is ‘what can we do’ and not what we want to do
There you have it! You just spent four whole hours of the day you were praying God to have last night, thrown into the bin you most probably bought off Amazon.
Apart from being a click away from our online menu of food delivery, food is not the only thing that comes with a menu anymore. A new menu of who we want to date and seek interest into has also come to our delivery at the comfort of our own house.
Swipe left, swipe right, “Oh! We have a match”.
Excuse me, who is this exactly? Modern technology has not only left us confused with millions of possibilities but has also changed the perspective of dating and relationships. We no longer tend to ask our partner what the problem is; we ask Google if our relationship is healthy, if it’s going to last and why our partner is not as affectionate as he once was.
How can a user from the other side of the world define your own relationship and troubles? Love is an abstract theory and no two people or two relationships are the same. All you’ll be left with is the same concept as mentioned before, a brick of advices and choices, which do not meet our needs.
Please, I encourage you to take a step back from your mobile phone, put it as far away from the tips of your hands as possible and ask yourself, what do I really want?
Janice Falzon is reading for a Communications Bachelor’s Degree course at the University of Malta.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece