Keeping up with the fast developing new world.

There was a time when we would go to bed thinking about the movie we just watched. We replayed events of the day and pondered on words of wisdom we might have heard from our leaders or clerics.

In those days we often had an epiphany when some speech blew our minds or altered our perception of reality.

Today the landscape is very different in that we are permanently connected to everyone else on the planet. We are constantly bombarded with words of wisdom and movies and all manner of entertainment. All of this hits our senses at the same time. New and often fake news compete for our attention and we are often overwhelmed with too much input. Our biological systems were not designed to handle so much data. The additional task of fact-checking first is often ignored in the rush to get through the data.

This has led to us being constantly overwhelmed and unable to make out the truth from the construct.

The constant barrage on our systems leads to other new problems as well. The most disturbing is our inability to retain information.

When the input of data was infrequent and within our design specifications we were able to parse the data and mentally file it and go back and ponder on the new information when we had a quiet moment. With our systems constantly backlogged and unable to deal effectively with the torrent of incoming data we are unable to distinguish the value from the useless. Our antiquated lizard brain is unable to commit this deluge to memory and unable to determine what, if anything, was worth remembering, So we let the news and data wash over us in the hope that if something is really powerful it will make an indelible mark on our memory. We trust our mind's ability to hang onto the valuable and ignore the noise.

Some people are good at this and it works for them. Most however have become modern-day zombies. Sucking in all the news feeds and information that has landed in our mental inbox and sending it to the trash with only a cursory inspection.

This syndrome has other more vital implications for humanity.

When we are at church or at a mosque the men of the cloth try to educate us as countless of them have done for countless generations. For the first time in that long history what they have to say from the pulpit now has to compete with world-class media designed for maximum engagement.

The social media that we are mostly addicted to are optimized by the best minds in the world and the best computer algorithms for maximum engagement. If you get upset at some injustice, that gets your juices flowing, that's exactly what you will be fed. Cute cats. Floods and catastrophic events. Whatever floats your boat is exactly what you will get in your feed. Tailored for you.

How can a man of the cloth standing at a pulpit compete with that? His training in the defence against the dark arts came from medieval times and he is not equipped to handle the modern era.

There are those few amongst them who have come to this same realisation and they have launched blogs and podcasts and Instagram channels and the like. These men of the cloth who have embraced the technology of the world we live in have been hugely successful and influential.

The problems of our age affect these forward-thinking clerics just as it affects all the media we consume.

The end-user is jaded from too much exposure. We are all crying out. It's not possible to pull on our heartstrings as was done in the past. We don't feel things as deeply as we are overstimulated and in turn, have become numb to the world.

Things that would have shocked us or angered us or left us laughing in stitches just wash over us without getting any reaction. This is what happens to us when we are overexposed.

Too much sugar, too much of anything that we would have craved if had been scarce, makes us immune to its charm. Simple jokes that entertained us in the past barely warrant a gratuitous smile.

The bar has been set and it is really high.

Your teachers and spiritual guides find themselves competing against TikTok and Instagram for our attention.

If their voices are drowned out by the flood of data that is our life how do we expect them to give us pearls of wisdom that would change our lives?

Some have gone the route of the monk. Distance yourself from the world for a limited space of time and then you might smell the coffee and appreciate the world around us.

Many cults have turned away from the modern world and forbidden interaction with modern media.

As sad as this is, I have to accept that this is one time that hiding your head in the sand might actually be a decent idea. I accept how this would come with its own challenges. The followers of this Luddite clan would be disadvantaged in our highly evolved economy but that's beside the point. The clerics who preach that we put away our devices might actually stand the best chance of being heard.

All of the remainders will find themselves unable to compete for our short attention span.

Over the last two years, Holywood has had to evolve rapidly. The Netflix and Apple TVs of the world have delivered high-quality content directly to users' homes. The idea of going weekly to the cinema is obsolete.

The quality and variety of streaming media have improved exponentially and Holywood has had to adapt or die.

The men of the cloth too will need to adapt or see their influence die.


Mohammed Parak
Dec 2021.