“Does today seem different to you? If you are old enough you may remember a time when people pretty much watched the same TV shows during the week. For seven nights you pretty much knew what was available, but you checked or marked the TV guide to be sure. You watched pretty much the same news. You had those water cooler conversations the next day because of what ‘most’ people saw and heard.

You would go to bars and restaurants and while some people sat alone, or in some cases had some reading material, many sat and talked while waiting on food and drink or while dining. The same was true of events small and large. You participated or witnessed people interacting. Because people did many of the same activities together and were exposed to the same media sources, mostly the 3 networks we had much more in common.

Then came a la carte programming. Hundreds of channels, though not at first with hundreds of options. You can’t now even begin to keep up with all the stars and starlets and shows you’ve never heard of. The 24/7 era of news began and up to the minute correct or not reporting spawned. Instead of all watching and listening to the same sources suddenly it became tailored to ‘you.’ Or tailored for you? Or tailored to market mostly to you.

DEVELOP THE POSITIVE ATTITUDE, MINDSET AND BELIEFS TO TRANSFORM YOURSELF

As the era of community went from one for all to all for one, we benefited but lost something. We lost the cooperation and harmony we seemed to have. We were pretty much homogenized. Even pasteurized but we had many things in common and still we managed to disagree. With the advent of splintering the sources from the few to the many and the advent of social media it seems instead of an alphabet we have 26 individual letters.

While it’s true there are 26 letters in English and differing amounts in language alphabets around the world, we seemed to be much more united. Perhaps, it was just an illusion but together we could do so much more than any one letter of an individual could do alone. Community and cooperation have been eroding for decades. Sit anywhere today and instead of people taking mostly, they are mostly scrolling or taking or texting on phones.

People are still together but more isolated than ever. Some people always were. Today, many choose to be. They watch news tailored for them. The fractionate or split off into splinter groups. Social media seems anything but social. More people are isolated and many willing to argue and fight with strangers over opinions that matter little in the larger scheme of things. We are dominated by bots, and hackers, and false accounts and non-humans.

DEVELOP THE POSITIVE ATTITUDE, MINDSET AND BELIEFS TO TRANSFORM YOURSELF

AI can do lots of good things and much of it deceives us. We are marketed to, in ways we could not have been not so many years ago. Social media, the internet has become mostly a tool for huge corporations to use their wares and agendas on those splinters, willing to be entertained and brainwashed factions. From the United States we’ve become divided states. People get their emotional hits from likes and shares instead of real people.

While it might all be good, or might all be not-so-good, things continue to change. We still can’t manage much of the technology we’ve created to serve people to make the world a better place. We’re smaller and more connected while more isolated and more divided concurrently. With innovation comes disruption and more problems we need to solve, hence more innovation.

We are in the information and disinformation and misinformation age. We are being manipulated without knowing it AND willingly accepting it. We are attracted to shiny objects that cost a lot but deliver those dopamine hits. We give up meaningful couple and group interactions, accurate information and objective reporting (if such a thing ever were possible) for editorialized messages meant to deceive, manipulate and control while entertaining us.

DEVELOP THE POSITIVE ATTITUDE, MINDSET AND BELIEFS TO TRANSFORM YOURSELF

As a result, what we may be and what we may become is yet to be decided. However, while we can, we can still love, if we find someone, enjoy friendships online and hopefully off. We can seek to cooperate and collaborate and understand each other or we can isolate more and become more hateful and hurtful because all we consume is what is wrong with others according to the latest tweets. It’s a time of change and awakening.

Hopefully, we awaken to what’s going on and make some important positive changes to get along better, help each other and enjoy a real 5 sense experience of life and not just in front of a screen. Screens are good but should not be our everything. People still are our most important resource. Find time to spend more time with family and friends. Go out and leave the phones off for a few hours.

Try to remember what it was like without one. In so many ways it was better AND now we have lots at our fingertips we didn’t. Let’s use that to make our experience of living better. Unfortunately, most go lower instead of higher. Seek to understand, like and love yourself, others, life in general and specifically. Let’s not forget we were humans without technology far longer than we’ve been humans with it. Use it. Don’t be used by it.

DEVELOP THE POSITIVE ATTITUDE, MINDSET AND BELIEFS TO TRANSFORM YOURSELF

Find ways to have meaningful and satisfactory exchanges on and off it. Live, love, laugh and learn from everything. Learn from our mistakes and our advances. Be more human than less human. Just because we can doesn’t always mean we should, nor that we shouldn’t pursue it or something else.  I say pursue love, being human and gratitude, find what unites us and brings us closer and better off together.

Read more, scroll less. BUT read good stuff. Enlighten yourself with opinions other than just yours and your splinter group’s. Listen to understand another’s point of view, not to speak to correct. Get together to enjoy company, not to sit on your phones ignoring each other together. Have more real life fun. Sing, dance, tell stories. Entertain. Make love WITH a human. Find joy in nature not in simulations. Anything can be good, but we must decide to make it good. Let’s make it good. Live a wonderful life. Learn to enjoy all of it and to use some things sparingly for our good, not as a replacement for missing out with others. Celebrate everything!” Rex Sikes