FR
Nowadays, admitting you do not have a smartphone nor even a simple cellphone to make/receive calls (an important clarification in today's society) is just like claiming you come from another planet. What the hell do I know — after all, I might just as well have been involved in a flying-saucer crash causing me amnesia? When you tell them, people tend to stare at you, all button-eyed and unbelieving like Mr Bean's teddy bear.
What is inconceivable to me is the denial those who won't acknowledge their addiction deliberately lock themselves into. No shame in admitting it, you know. It's actually the first salutary step towards self-awareness. These electronic devices can certainly prove extremely valuable on some occasions — for one, like finding a friend in the midst of a crowd, calling emergency services or assistance and saving you the hassle of finding a phone booth if they still exist (you know, those weird boxes of old resembling a Tardis) — however, we should never allow them to become so essential and so intrusive. Just picture yourself enjoying time with someone you like and being constantly interrupted by their bloody phone. At some point, even those who have the uncommon decency to switch off their ‘precious’ (my iron lung) always end up with a good excuse for switching it back on, so anxious they are at the prospect of missing a very unlikely life-changing call.
Sorry to be a little crude here, but being unable to do without something is the true nature of addiction. The kind of addiction that could ultimately destroy the human race. And I'm not just talking about the extremely health-damaging effects of these portable brain-toasters (which public authorities still deny but which are being confirmed by a growing number of scientific studies from reliable sources). New technologies are the last step towards (impending) transhumanism — humanity's worst nightmare. Welcome to Hell!
Are we living in an electronic apocalypse and not even recognizing it as we text our way down the street, not noticing the people around us? Are we acting like zombies with our minds buried in our screens? In public, everyone is moving along fast, but do we really exist anymore? Are we really alive and free, interacting face to face? Where has the listening ear gone? Is all connection lost?
On Tim Lott's Family column on The Guardian news site, these concerns come to life. High-tech phones and social media platforms have interconnected people over long distances, but humanity's growing obsession and intoxication with the digital world is actually breaking real life bonds, destroying precious eye to eye contact
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translated from French by EY@EL
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