This digital landscape has become a fragmented wasteland of generational ego. Everyone is migrating to Instagram or TikTok because it is easier to scroll past a picture of a taco or a ten-second dance than to engage an actual brain cell. We are told, "No long paragraphs! Big bad no-no! Keep it snappy!" Who decided that? Since when is length the enemy of truth? Some people actually like to read—they want to think, not just swallow pre-chewed, algorithm-approved sound bites and godforsaken memes.
The majority of the population is drowning in instant gratification, but the rot looks different depending on the birth certificate. You have the late-thirties and forty-somethings who are addicted to these short, snappy "feedings" that simplify the world into 'Our Guys Good' and 'Your Guys Bad.' They don't even know what their own "guy" stands for, they just want the dopamine hit of being right. Then you have the older crowd, the "old farts" like me who post pictures of the "good old days" just to feel relevant, pretending that stagnant crap from forty years ago is a blueprint for the future. And the youth? They are so busy trying to "wake" themselves and document every performative second of their lives that they’ve forgotten how to actually live.
This is not progress; it is pure demographic regression, fueled by a populist surge that thrives on us being too distracted to pay attention. It is time we started looking at life again, examining what we think rather than reacting to the screaming heads on the tube. Stop waiting for a savior—whether it's the populist of the day promising a return to a Jesus they don't even understand, or a progressive icon who can't outvote a massive, aging population. PICK UP A GODDAMN BOOK. Use that device in your pocket for something other than an endless visual diversion.
Read about social problems. Read psychology. Read some actual information. The problem is you go to work, do your job, come home, and pop on the tube to listen to whatever populism is being exported today—and then you vote that way. This is how the world goes down the freaking tube. Books from anywhere on any topic are available, and free university courses are everywhere, but instead, you pop onto Instagram to send pictures of your food and your kids. You’ve been brainwashed into thinking it’s a "No-No" to talk politics or religion in social spaces, but if nobody takes the risk to have a difficult conversation, we rot. We become the cattle that populist leaders are herding toward the cliff. Put down the food picture, close the app for five minutes, and use your mind before it finishes atrophying.
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