How easy our lives have become as we have slowly disconnected from Life! Man has managed to kill the humanity of Mankind. It has been a comfortable death thus far. Has it not?

Did we even look up and take note?

“You shall have no other gods before Me”

-God-

I had written in “Artificial/Obsolete” how Artificial Intelligence is quickly becoming the technology that swallows Man whole. That it is allowing our children to step down mentally into sheer stupidity as it writes their book reports for them. That they take the hours that have been traditionally set aside for them to exercise their mind and thought to further educate and enlighten themselves, to stare at or star in TikToks. That it is recasting people that cannot define complementary colors into great artists. That the next Bach is in fact tone def. That the next Homer is producing his greatest epic while he is slumbering. Not to mention all of the Bachelor Degrees that will be on your nearest street corner holding a cardboard sign. It would seem as though The Artificial is one of the worst inventions of Man. As it will inevitably cause him to become obsolete. However, I would like to take a step back to mention what I truly believe is one of the worst (and most dangerous) inventions of Man.

The Smartphone.

I know. A hypocrite I am! Because I type this on a Smartphone. Certainly owning one has made my life easier in this regard. I can write during the frequent downtime at my job (which I am doing at this very moment). I can type these words on my lunch break. No longer do I need to do as I did when I began blogging over sixteen years ago. Where ideas enter my mind through the day, and then I must wait until the children find sleep before I pull a chair up to our laptop and start typing into the late evening hours. No. Twenty minutes ago I opened this app and began typing this paragraph. But it does not end there for any of us. We no longer need to hunt for a pay phone if we need to reach someone while we are out. We no longer have to catch up on emails before we wash the day away in the shower. We no longer have to drag out the map, or drain our printer ink while printing out Mapquest. We no longer even need to carry a wallet in our back pocket. We can now make Smartphone our wallet. Radios playing that which we do not want to hear are a thing of the past. As well as Blockbuster. Life has now become mastered by us as we have become the gods of our little world that have been condensed into this little box. On demand. Everything we want. Whenever we want it. Wherever we want it.

Unfortunately, this is the disease that Smartphones have created. The hunger of our flesh to have our immediate wants and desires are now met. Not just are we in control of our entertainment, but we can peer into the lives of others on social media. Being the nosey neighbor that watches as someone dying for attention puts their life on public display. In time this wanton desire leads to our own destruction as control and curiosity become our addiction. We no longer want to put it down. Everything that the eye can see must be videoed or forever etched in time as a still. Every song must be heard. Every video must be watched. “Later!” is scoffed at as “No, now!” takes hold. In time we cannot live life without having our soul connected to it. In doing so we disconnect from Life itself.

Recently my Bride and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary by going out to a nice restaurant. By the way, we are so financially embarrassed that McDonald’s is considered five star dining. In this case our children paid. Anyway, we sat across from each other and talked about what all parents talk about when they finally step away from the children. We talked about… the children. I noticed, looking around as we enjoyed our meal, several tables where it was apparent that there were families seated. Adults and children. All of them were barely in discussion. Because all of them were connected into their own little world. Playing the gods of their devices. My first thought was “How sad!”. A family goes out together. No job and No school. No hobbies. No sports or music lessons. No distractions of Life to hold them back. But they go out together and away from their daily routine… only to bury their mind into Smartphone. Totally oblivious of each other. Staring down while their stupid grin, indicative of a dead mind lost in cyberspace, was illuminated by the soft glow of their device. My second thought was “What on earth are they looking at?”. Son and Daughter on TikTok? Mom catching up on Facistbook? Dad looking at last night’s scores? Or maybe he is watching the game live? What is so important that they at that exact moment within the presence of each other must connect to disconnect? Nothing could wait until they had returned to their normal lives? I can only imagine that if they could not disconnect for a lovely dinner together as a family, that this must be their normal way of living. 

But it is not uncommon to see people in public not communicating with each other. Strangers just sitting, looking down. Oblivious to what surrounds them in the real world. Dead are the days of old where the simple gesture of eye contact and a “Good morning, ma’am!” could brighten someone’s day. Now if you strike up a conversation with a stranger on the flight, you are a nuisance. There is something wrong with you. Why? Because you are encroaching on the other person’s cyber world. You are a threat to the sovereignty of their kingdom as you overstep your unseen boundaries. To try to converse would force a disconnect from their world, and cause them to reconnect to the real world. How often it is that an incident takes place in the public sphere, such as a violent attack or a health crisis, and instead of Man stepping in to help, he either bows his head to resume dictating his world or videotapes the incident with hopes of going viral. Then in going viral, they are not just the god, but now they are the celebrity.

Maybe this is why Man struggles to cope with the real world? Because he has become so used to living in his fake one. Enter the emotional support animals.

His fake world in fact has become the poison of his undoing. Man has become so accustomed to hiding behind his keyboard, that he has no idea how to function when he steps back into the real world. He insults his fellow man with vile words in the comments section. Words that he otherwise would never utter to another’s face. Until he becomes jaded. Until the black of social media and the white of reality commingle into gray. Then we find him in the streets in protest. Showing the same anger and speaking the same vile words in the face of those that he no longer agrees with. This, I believe, is why we see such animosity and violence when people assemble in the streets to speak their beliefs. Because they cannot disconnect from the anonymous safety of their keyboard. They go into the streets no longer knowing how to act with their fellow man. They sometimes fail to reconnect with reality. This is why they are stunned when the opposition retaliates with violence. Or the consequences of their actions lead to arrest. Because there are no repercussions for their actions in their own fake world. 

Sadly, Man was never designed to take on the load of information that Smartphones provide. A constant barrage of information and misinformation. Lies from The Voice constantly. Man was much more tame when he got his information through the grapevine and had to work to find the truth. When he tuned into the news at six. When The Voice reported on the happenings of the world, and did not concern itself with manipulation by way of propaganda and agendas. But, because Man keeps his soul wired into Smartphones all day, he is constantly being fed. And in time this binge eating and overeating on propaganda rewires his mind. He is no longer able to think for himself. He is no longer able to think rationally. Truth becomes offensive. Right becomes wrong. He becomes angry. He becomes depressed. He worries as Anxiety strangles him. He becomes numb to his fellow man because in his cyber world, his fellow man does not exist.

It is sad. My two oldest children (one is an adult and the other is a late teen) have Smartphones now. My children to some extent harbor some sort of creativity. I have noticed with these two a decline in that creativity. One of which cannot live unless his face is sucked into the screen. Their attitudes have become more hateful. We spend countless hours telling them to get off their phones, which most of the time leads to inaction. We are usually met with disrespect. I have a nephew that lives out of the country. When he visits once a year he wants nothing to do with the family that he should be catching up with. He wants to hide in a room elsewhere from everyone and play on Smartphone. And Hell hath no fury like him when you stand between the god and the world that he controls. But why is this? Why do young people (and some of old) act as if you have chopped off their limbs if you stand between them and their device? I believe it is because their minds are impressionable and they desire to feed it that which brings satisfaction. They can overindulge on dopamine hits all day long. Again, they are the gods of their own world. They can have whatever they want and whenever they want it. It is like the dog that is feeding on a feast of meat that will bite your hand if you reach down to take away the bowl.

Sadly, with the over feeding of information, the control over your desires, and the beckoning of your wants, Smartphones have created a world of addicts. Of people that cannot put down their devices. No matter the setting. Whether it is in a restaurant, at a family gathering, at the job site, in the waiting room, or even behind the wheel. We feel like we are missing out on something if we turn our glance away. That our world will leave us behind if we take a moment to simply disconnect. There are times in my own home where I intentionally walk away and leave my device behind. Only to have a child follow me with it, saying “Here Daddy. You forgot this”. “Thanks son. But I was leaving it behind on purpose”. Because I know that you have to look up from time to time to rediscover Life. One of my favorite things about being in the blind during Autumn is to look out upon nature and to listen. To hear the birds. The squirrels. The dogs and cattle over the hill. Things that remind me of what is important in Life. A disconnect from the false world that I rule, and a reconnect to the world that God created. The real world. A world that has existed since before I breathed my first, and will continue to exist after I breathe my last. A world that will carry on when we all are nothing more than a memory.

Even though having Smartphones has streamlined our lives, it has come with a price. That Man has become addicted to the vast amount of information and entertainment that he controls at the tip of his finger. There is noticeably a great divide between the generations of old and new. The newer generations do not know how to cope with Life outside of their Smartphone. If it becomes lost, then their world comes crashing down. If you try to take it away, then they act as if they want to tear your head off. Including the heads of their own flesh and blood. It is as if you have divided body and soul. As if you have pulled the plug on life support… and time is running out. The older generations are more resilient. They understood how to read a map. How to turn off the TV. How to talk on the phone. How to wait patiently for their favorite song on the radio. How to wait even more patiently for the next episode of their favorite show to conclude in the weeks to follow.

And most importantly, they knew how to connect to each other. How to talk. How to listen. A couple of rocking chairs on the porch with some cold iced tea.

I have no doubts in my mind that as each generation that has chosen to connect to disconnect passes, they will be more stupid and useless. Because they will not be able to function without their Smartphone. They will rely on ChatGPT to tell them how to speak to people. They will spout off emotional tirades because they get their information from Instagram without first checking the facts and fall for believing anything they see or hear. They will lose their ability to connect to humanity. They will be impatient and short tempered because something may hinder their instant gratification. Something or someone may try to interfere with the god from managing and controlling his world.

Because selfishness will reign supreme.

I understand that, as I mentioned earlier, holding a computer in our hands has streamlined and simplified our lives. That I do not deny.  At any moment we can pull up whichever movie that we desire to watch. We call pull up any song that we choose to hear. We can get directions to where we need to be, have conversations at any moment, and instantaneously check our email. Smartphones have become portable movie and music studios. We can take a photo at a moment’s notice and videotape things that otherwise no one would believe if we told them. In short, we are in control of our own world. Everything that our hearts desire at the tip of our fingertips. However, in choosing to connect, we disconnect from the world. We miss out on Life. On events that are best experienced without relying on the screen. On conversations that open our eyes and make us think. We miss the moments that do not wait until we are done having our souls drained into the device. Sadly, as the technologies of Smartphone become more advanced and Life becomes more streamlined, Man will become more and more dependent and addicted. Until he is no longer able to function without it. Until it becomes the life support that sustains him. And then we all will connect to mankind collectively, by disconnecting from humanity. And all of it will be filtered through a screen.

All of one mind. Billions of gods bowing their heads to a greater god that owns their souls. 

Never again will Man look up.

“Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another god”

-From The Book of Psalms