Social networks were truly an epochal revolution, but not because they connected people to each other and fostered personal growth. Rather because they revealed who we are, something we were absolutely unaware of until the late 1990s.
It is now normal to go to a movie at the cinema but spend most of the time ignoring the images on the screen and staying with your eyes on your own. smartphone: the sacredness of the show , massacred first by television and remote control , then from the internet, is now a distant memory.
In the 90s, in my naive mind as an internet-less teenager, there was another world, another society made up of people with wide horizons. Then the web was born and grew, slowly focusing on a picture that I never expected, thanks above all to social networks. The real world, what people seek and want, was very different, and all that remained was to slowly become aware of it, trying to understand its dynamics.
No one could ever dare to go that far with their imagination. Homologation is no longer a social or political issue. Society and homologation have become the same thing. Indeed, society is only a small part of the standardization which then has its roots in the depth of individual souls. But most people are completely unaware of the abyss in which they live.
Thanks Facebook for opening this window: now the world is not the same anymore. Indeed, it is more accurate to say that it appears for what it really is. The mass social psychology has emerged more and more with the internet and in particular with social media, to show themselves shamelessly to the whole world.
The fashionable women and men of Istagram are not only a role model for girls who don’t know what kind of underwear to wear in the morning, but also a business model for men and institutions who want to build the society of the future. The real gurus are no longer those who write books, taking months or perhaps years, but those who have an approximate tutorial on the web or on social networks for every question of human knowledge.
What leaps to the eyes of the world of social networks and search engines is the absolute lack of any individual critical spirit that can guide their life choices, instead dramatically shaped by pre-established powers, habits and customs. Who knows by whom, who knows where, who knows when and who knows why. Social networks are the new point of reference for choosing and walking the path of life.
The controversy as an end in itself for pure outburst that recalls the famous “hour of hate” of Orwell . The destructive criticisms, the selfies, the teenage dance apps, the great industry experts who want to teach “how to”. Children who at the parties of their peers do not even get up from the table to continue to stay with their heads immersed in the smartphone.
Whole populations that now mark their existence by scrolling the Facebook feed on the phone without a purpose, in the streets, in cinemas, in bars, everywhere, like crazy pinball balls in search of any kind of entertainment. They are just the tip of the iceberg of a universe that we should take some time to think seriously about.
The impression is that the survival instinct, aesthetics and the most superficial appearance of life dominate the world. For example, mediocre, improvised makeup tutorials that once even the worst local TV would have doubted to broadcast have a following of millions and millions of followers around the world.
Because, once again, behind this seemingly free ocean flow, the ultimate goal is to make money or proselytize. What we see in any square of any city in the world are dozens of heads bent towards that small screen that we always hold in our hands: the smartphone is the new Messiah and the large corporations that are inside the Holy Spirit.
Fortunately, Nature, even if it is severely tested, is always there, firm, imposing, immortal. Once again Nature will save the world.
