“Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed.”

― Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

Photo by Tracy Le Blanc on Pexels.com

The sky grew dark. A distant thunder rumbled menacingly. Humanity cowered in the shadows, their faces illuminated only by their small, handheld devices from which they could not tear their eyes away.

3-13-2019: Where were you when social media giants crashed for the whole day?

I heard a deejay comment something like he wrote five poems, went for a run and was finally able to clean his house. His co-host laughed and said she merely kept hitting refresh to see if the problem would fix itself.

Have you seen this lovely woman on your feed?

Did it occur to you that, once again and ever so ironically, this picture came to you via social media? I wish it weren’t so. I am quite guilty of this myself, although I’ve tried more recently to be more present and in the moment. Yet I cannot resist that quick photo opp under the guise of keeping the grandparents up to date with photos of the kids and their newest adventures.

Inevitably, along with that post comes several minutes of scrolling. As FOMO creeps along my thumb, I simply must find out what everyone is doing on this lovely day. Can I not see the forest for the trees? Apropos, as we’re hiking down a beautiful mountain trail complete with babbling brooks, boulders covered in soft moss, and, yes, tons of trees.

By the way, who decided to call it a “feed”? We’re just cattle, grazing on whatever’s put in front of us – too sucked in by it to raise our heads up and look around at what’s really happening, which is also really difficult to determine. Fake news, doctored videos and the rise of AI may just make me rethink that forest. A small cabin with a fireplace and some tea might be just the thing to get back to what’s real.

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