I have a love-hate relationship with living in a hyperconnected world. Despite it being free will when it comes to deciding on our level of connectivity, it sometimes seems as if we are pushed into being mapped in.
A hyperconnected world has made living easier and cheaper without a doubt. On Wednesday of this week, I had a five-hour internet disruption, which prevented me from working or doing any digital errands. It made me reflect on how dependent I have become on the internet; how impossible it seems to survive without it and how it has changed our behaviour patterns. In some ways, it has made us selfish when it comes to thinking about others, the environment and the future without even realizing it.
By nature, human beings are frugal for the most part and, if anything, having the internet at our fingertips has intensified this aspect of us. The first thing anyone does these days before buying anything is to scour the internet to ensure they are getting value for their money; which is fair, we work hard. The marketplace for literally every type of product has become so competitive that it has become natural to think primarily about price and hardly ever about the impact it has on labour or the environment.
We don’t even consider the social interaction with friends lost when shopping for hedonistic purposes and, by extension, the retail jobs that are threatened because our new sales assistant is an algorithm. It has become easy to develop anti-social behaviour because of how convenient everything is.
We have become so self-indulgent that outrage over social issues has an automatic awareness timer. This most distressing thing about this is that it has become so easy to live in this bubble. The problem is that one-off internet disruptions or voluntary self-reflective moments where we are forced to slow down are not enough to reduce the pressure we put on resources and the environment.
Of course, writing about living ethically, socially and environmentally is easy as opposed to living it in its truest form and when starting to challenge yourself it can seem like you are going in circles and it will seem like that for quite some time. But, as with everything else, time helps us to adjust.
Sometimes I think I am overly concerned at the alarming rate at which we are destroying the earth and perhaps there is time to not take things so seriously. But even if that were the case, why destroy what we may not have ability to gain back at all?
