The disconnection technology
I will list some facts throughout the quarantine that call attention for expressing a dichotomy between the diffusion of the development of digital businesses and, consequently, technologies and the real state of the human being as the positive reality in their nations.
Pandemic causes record recession and drops GDP of at least 28 countries…
But, we have Artificial Intelligence, PhDs and Technology Giants. So we should have enough agile traffic lights (because agile methods are quickly diffused and tested and validated and gain scale at a level that has never been seen in the past decade) that would alert us to bad weather and bring us action with technology acts at its best form: Through connections.
Automatically the Neoludism movement came to mind (disconnect to find). Movement that proposes to see technology critically and abandon the search for permanent connection. In a flash of conscience we ask ourselves: “What is the nature of what we call technology, what is it and the use we make of it?”
This question leads the human being to ask the same question that was already asked in the beginning of philosophical thought, in the eternal search for his own identity: “Who am I?”.
What is my true nature, the animated one, corresponding to the virtual representation of myself on the Internet? Or, this corporeal being who tries, in the act of animating, to create an improved personality of himself, to play an online role. And so we arrive at the sapiens’ existential crisis in the postmodern era.
With the advent of technology, the term “technoculture” was coined, around 1960, to represent the mutual influence between technology and culture with a focus on their points and means of contact. Later, technoculture came to be associated with the resistance created by different currents and cultural movements technologically inspired in the face of organizational and governmental technocratic institutions. In this case, technoculture constitutes a field of dispute that can be oriented to elevate or to subvert dominant regimes.
The fact is that with the expansion of technoculture, a belief was disseminated by the great promoters of it — the digital media — that “we live in a connected society” and that, therefore, we need to be connected at all times. In other words, it was developed the thought that all of us, sapiens in the 21st century, need — or rather, we need — to be represented in the virtual environment, since this encourages globalization and immersion in an increasingly “happy” world and connected. Connect to exist.
Neoludism questions the cult of technology and its impact on the collective, not calling itself averse to technology, but only aware of its role and its representation in the social environment. However, in an age of extremes, it seems that we need to choose between being super connected or super disconnected.
Disconnection is the “new” luxury
Considering all this, it is worth questioning what would happen if we decided to disconnect and /or exclude the excited being: would we have us back? Would disconnection make us find ourselves?
For a virtualized society today, this exit from the scene could be considered a transgression. If today the rule is to exist in the virtual, and you want to disconnect, it is as if you cease to exist — therefore, you are a transgressor of the system.
You need to have Facebook to interact; you need to have Linkedin to look for a job; you need to have a messaging app to communicate with your work and family; you need to have a mobile app to get around and in the future just a virtual card to use public transport; you must have biometrics to vote; you need to have a Startup.
In this attempt to try to be omnipresent, we become increasingly represented to the world and increasingly absent from ourselves. And where is the technology that connects ???
