The Oppressive Nature of Being Always Connected

Anything that takes control of you can oppress you. Anything that can make you do something without conscious thought has a certain power over you. When it drives behaviors that harm you, it is oppressing you.

What if an object that was designed to serve you commanded such power over you that it could literally make you pick it up? An object that could take control of your senses, your sight, your hearing, would also rule your focus and attention. The more frequently such an object could command your attention, the more power it would have over you.

 Over time, the subject could become central to your identity. It could become part of you, so much so that you could never be without that object. Anything with this type of control over you would have the ability to change the nature of your relationships. It might, for example, be able to pull your attention away from people who were sitting close to you in a meeting-or even at dinner. It could take your attention away from the experience you might otherwise be having and devoted to something that is not only not worth your time, but something that is captured in a way that makes it available forever.

If this object was so ubiquitous, and exerted such power over the great majority of people, one might not even notice that they were being controlled by something that they should instead be controlling. Instead of that object being the servant of its owner, its owner would become the servant of that object. If the object were to fall in the hands of people who wanted to command the attention of those who use the object, they might intentionally create software designed to keep the owner of the object connected to it and occupied with novelties with little value, designed only to serve those who profit from gaining control of their focus and attention.

The object is less than 36 inches away from you right now, and likely never more than that unless you have mistakenly forgot it, in which case you will immediately turn around and retrieve it.

Being always connected is a form of oppression.

Filed under: Excellence

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