How many screens are there in our lives? The TV, the computer, the cell phone? How many hours do we spend behind these screens? How many of these hours are creative, offer us new knowledge and stimuli, make us better people?
How do we feel when – at last – we get off these screens? We’re usually empty. There’s a sense of emptiness in us. We have not drawn anything substantial; on the contrary, we have wasted all our energy and are no longer in the mood for anything new.
On these screens, the – usually false – lives of others take place. Advertisements, computer games, series, broadcasts, and media show others’ idealized lives: dream vacations, spotless, luxury homes, ideal relationships, beloved families, smiles, and all this disappears as soon as the flashes and cameras go out.
We go out to meet friends, and for most of the meeting, we are stuck on the mobile screen – lest we miss the news!
We spend our lives watching other people’s lives. And where’s our life? Is there, is it going on, or is it passively experienced? Is it evolving, or are we going to remain ordinary spectators even in our own lives? We have become passive receivers of changes, developments, situations. We accept what happens without reaction, without question. What’s wrong with us? What is the real power of these technology instruments?
There are not a few who have decided to close these screens forever and take their lives into their own hands.
Others’ lives will not change us; they will not evolve us; they will not offer us love, interaction, laughter, and happiness.
Let’s decide to turn off the screens, get off the couch, actively create our lives. Let’s not let another minute go by with meaningless screen surveillance.
