The slave

Technology wants me to stay up to date, get excited, never miss a thing, never miss anything. Grow my network, subscribe, signup now, start my trial now, go premium now, learn more, like more, follow more, share, stare, fade to black.

It also wants to inform me, notify me, engage me, remind me, suggest to me, send me newsletter, access my phonebook, know my location, access my location, follow my every step, blind me with ads, target ads for me, block my ad-blocker for me. Get my data, store my data, use my data, sell my data, feast off of my data.

It wants to isolate me, imprison me, keep me addicted to its shiny plastic and pixels. Sell me a new version, not much different from the version I have. Only more expensive. It wants to be in my hands, in my head, in my vein, on my wrists, over my eyes. It wants me to hold it, touch it, stare at it, sleep with it, talk to it, because I don’t know how to talk to people anymore. It wants me to take photos of a moment instead of enjoying it. To eat news for breakfast, software updates for lunch and promotional emails for dinner. To type a message to a person next to me. To use emojis instead of language. To drive me around, to drive me crazy, to drive me far away from reality. To do things instead of me until I atrophy — physically, mentally and socially.

To calcify my empathy. To cement my senses. To vehemently fill my insides until there’s noting humane left inside my skin. And to apply filters to my dry skin shell so that I don’t see how ugly it has become.

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This post was originally published on my blog on October 10, 2016.