The absurdity is not lost that this question is posed online but have you ever spent an entire day without electronic communication tools? No cell, no email, no web for twenty-four hours. There are probably slower days like on the weekends when you’re not connected constantly, but this is a complete unplug. I call it a digital day off. And it may happen if you’re on vacation – especially camping – and what happened? Nothing. The sun still came up, the coffee still got brewed, you may have actually had a few more minutes for the important things, like people and yourself.There are just over two billion of us online which represents about 30% of the world’s population and is 480% higher than the days of Y2K. There are 922 million people online in Asia which equals close to 24% of the continent’s population while North America sits at 272 million internet users or 78% of the entire populace.
The Better Toaster
We argue with great fervour over the health of Google+ versus Twitter or which smartphone operating system is superior. The content generated on how to better generate content is unrelenting. Yet all the while, people are going to work and school and raising their families and eating at restaurants.
It’s cool that we could – if we wanted to – check in through a geosocial network every time we cross the threshold of a retail location. In fact, if we’re lucky, we may become they mayor of the grocery store. And the black and while square on the side of the soup can gives us more information than we need.
These Times Are Always A-Changin'
Technology will advance, gadgets will be introduced, new interfaces will be launched yet once in a while, perhaps for just a moment, we should remember the key element in this thing called life – and that is us.
We can now find people who share our views and ideas all over the world. Those we can meet with the ease of interfaces and technology boggles the mind. But as we attempt to gain attention and any other metric, we shouldn't forget one element.
Perhaps we need to take it offline once in a while?
Kneale Mann
image credit: sightseeingreview
