The internet is subtly training you for a 'own nothing and be happy mindset' by giving you mountains of data / media without requiring the discipline, or skills, of curation.
For millennials (and beyond) there is no need to methodically keep track of a music cd, movie or have a personal library of media as spotify/youtube/netflix performs all these actions. The skills, or discipline, of carefully maintaining something, tracking it, curating it is lost as there is no need in an age where everything is seamlessly performed for you. There is no need to remember the minute details of media, events or speeches as search engines fill in the need to remember and cultivate a history.
The downside to this goes beyond the perpetual service economy in which the millennial owns nothing; but extends to the basic ability to maintain and service their possessions. To a large degree, this also impacts their ability to think and plan as the need to maintain a database, or library is merely another skill left along the wayside as the internet becomes more and more ingrained. The need to 'remember' is also greatly reduced as google fills in the gap and performs the spell check on words that aren't quite right.
In all, this creates a 'scattered slave existence' where no on remembers the occurrences beyond last week as they haven't developed the skills, or thinking practices to maintain long term discipline. The value off having a CD, or carefully curated collection is greatly diminished as it's lost in the sea off media that is easily accessible without any skillset.
Great post, I couldn't agree more.
Smartphones, tablets etc are turning people brains into Jell-O tik-tok brains.
When the internet goes down those jello brains will pop.
On one hand I pity them because that will be a massive shock and a lot of the younger people are just imitating their millennial parents and trying to survive in the social media dominated young people social world. On the other hand, once the addiction is broken (if it is), they will probably experience a life free of tech addiction for the first time ever, which I'd imagine will feel orgasmic
Probably die in the switch over. They know zero about providing for themselves beyond ordering a 12 dollar Doordash ice coffee that's left outside the door until the ice has melted.
Lol