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After the creation of cities and nation states, the smartphone is the next major step for the human race towards becoming a single superorganism. Maybe the last major step, seeing as full integration is probably a matter of many smaller advancements in the future.
TV was worse. People looking at the box for hours really looked like junkies, motionless, blurred look, mouth open. At least phones are asynchronous in nature and the ~~addict~~ err people can still function. I think the real opium of people nowaday is politics, no matter what politics. People really want to protest the hell out of something. It gives meaning and purpose, it unites, but also makes them very vulnerabl…
For me, what's missing from the 'smartphone' // 'religion' analogy is — passion. The emotional tenor of my relationship with my phone looks — and, I'm sure — very different from the way people relate to their faiths. Facebook, YouTube, etc don't feel like 'movements' to me, like the article's author said. At least, I don't have the passion that a 'movement' seems to imply. For me, smartphoning is an emotional gray zo…
I always thought it was "opiate of the masses."
I always thought it was "opiate of the masses."
To whit, my take is that the smartphone is the new opiate of the masses only to the extent to which it (and social media) are the newest things we like to blame for far more complex social problems.
Prediction: banning smartphones won't stop kids from being depressed, nor will regulating Facebook fix extreme nationalism.
I always thought it was "opiate of the masses."
But using an analogy require you understand the phenomenon you are comparing it to. So what does religion mean? In this article, religion is about
- "a transcendental realm" (and so is youtube)
- meeting in congregations (and so is Google meetup)
- a hierarchy with devoted spiritual advisors at the top (and so is, apparently Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg)
But without even going into what the nature of religion is, it is easy to dispel this analogy. Because even in a highly religious society you can have non-religious organizations, meetups and "transcendental realms" in the form of fiction, music, art etc. So there is clearly a difference. Unless you are going to argue that everything is religion - which you can, of course, given a vague enough definition, but which also makes the term meaningless. If everything is religion then nothing is religion.
For me, what's missing from the 'smartphone' // 'religion' analogy is — passion. The emotional tenor of my relationship with my phone looks — and, I'm sure — very different from the way people relate to their faiths. Facebook, YouTube, etc don't feel like 'movements' to me, like the article's author said. At least, I don't have the passion that a 'movement' seems to imply. For me, smartphoning is an emotional gray zo…