Ever sit in front of your computer, sometimes for hours at a time, constantly checking and re-checking e-mail and facebook? The notion of hyperconnectivity is anything but uncommon in today's social media and crackberry realm. Hyperconnectivity exists when we are constantly plugging ourselves into the web: whether it be through our smartphone, our twitter, facebook, linkedin, tumblr or blogspot account, or even just searching through e-mail or messenger. We're attaching ourselves to other people in more ways than just telephone these days, and the consequences of hyperconnectivity are numerous.
Think of the last time your house lost power. You probably found yourself clawing at the keys on your blackberry, updating your facebook status ("power's out! dammit!"), checking twitter to see who else has lost power, and maybe even logging on to BBM to talk to your friends while the internet router sits there, lifeless.
Blackberry thumb was the carpal tunnel of the 2000s, and now we have hyperconnectivity. Hyperrealities exist in that we are so in tune to the world around us, yet not at all. We lack in our knowledge of world news and issues yet we are fully aware of the small differences between the iPhone 3 and 4, and the 'bumper issue'. Our parents exist outside of this reality for the most part. They see twitter as a strange and useless thing, yet it is a mere copy of the metaphorical 'grapevine' or 'hotline' that they use as a community. The twitter community is simply exponentially larger, full of useless gossip as well as newsworthy material.
The close-mindedness of the hyperconnected generation will only grow with each new method of communication. We were astonished when suddenly our iPods turned into phones, and our keyboards became smaller and were able to do everything from the palm of our hand. The personal computer is becoming a necessity to fewer and fewer people, just as our predecessors and parents are becoming literate and able to fully navigate the internet. The google search engine has become our central processing unit: whenever we don't know something (and more often than not, are too lazy to remember something) we google it. We spend hours looking for images for profile pictures, imagines of our favorite hyperreal 'celebrities' and the perfect haircut, only to have it copied by a hairstylist we found through google. The old ways of looking for things and knowing information (interpersonal relations and learning through experience) are complicated and useless to this generation. It's so much easier to look through IMDB (internet movie database) for the actor of a film we saw years ago instead of bothering to remember it. It creates this problem that Socrates worried about, how writing everything down would eliminate the purpose of our memory, and that we'd be so lazy we would just refer to notes instead of our memory.
Hyperconnectivity has caused us to become these individuals with an incredible amount of power and purpose but little knowledge of how to actually use it. Politically speaking, we complain and complain about how much we hate our current leader, yet few bother to speak up about it, few bother to research party platform and even fewer bother to use their right to vote and change things in their favour. Whatever works in the interest of the greatest number of people has been the ideology for years and years, and a shift may be slowly occuring, but the hyperreality of being in your own world of accessible artificial intelligence is the obstacle.
In order for change to occur, the ideology of the people must be completely overthrown and altered. The change must seep into the minds of the people and produce new ideology. The only way for true social change to occur is to literally hyperconnect to social change. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Digg, etc., are all excellent marketing tools; the true possibilities of entering deep into the minds of the people has yet to be revealed. It's a lot like Inception: deep enough into our minds we can plant an idea, and watch it grow. Hyperconnectivity allows these ideas into our hyperrealities, or our 'own little worlds': our reality beyond the actual reality.
So you see, hyperconnectivity has the potential to change or destroy the world, because it allows all sorts of information to flow freely from our minds and (mostly) into our minds. This constant bombardment of information and stimulus only creates a desire for more stimulus, and in the end makes us incredibly numbed out to the need for social change. Our minds become mere hedonists, and lack the ability to grasp the true state of the world (floods, poverty ravaged countries, earthquakes) unless there is a social effect behind it: think of the last time you donated money to a country's relief efforts... why did you do it? Who or where did you learn about it from?
The answer, is almost always the same: inside your hyperreality you are in constant contact with all kinds of stimulus, and your responses are in accord with the dominant ideology. When social change occurs, it is in the interest of this ideology. It's always in the interest of keeping things the same.
Hyperconnectivity is in a feedback loop without any subsequent change. Our feedback is simply to ask for more meaningless information, and lack of change (or subtle changes).
This is supposed to anger you. This is supposed to make you put down your blackberry, your iPhone, log off facebook, twitter or whatever you're hooked up to, and get outside. Go for a run, a walk. See what's out there. Listen to your parents, watch the 6:00 news. See what's happened since you were a kid. You'll be terrified at the results.
I conclude this with a quote from Neil Postman: "What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us."
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