Weapons of Mass DistrAction

Source: from the Author: my first Facebook Profile picture.

I got inspired to write this article from the article from @tarazkp and his answer to my comment.

If they don't change their behavior, soon, all they will be able to do in life, is eat alone. Perhaps it has something to do with the obesity epidemic the world faces.

I got inspired to think how spending all that time in front of the smartphone can literally create inertia in many other different areas of life.

As a coach of a wheelchair basketball team I coach people from 13 to 50 years old. It’s sometimes hard to merge all the different necessities, physical and mental.

One key aspect is that sometimes the younger guys stay on their own at the cell phone close to themselves, laughing and scrolling incessantly.
I often call them to stop and to join us and when they join us they are also well integrated in the group.

I understood that they are not stuck at their phone because they are really shy or anti-social.

They are simply dragged into these behaviors because all their peers are doing such because all the other peers are doing the same.

Nowadays kids and adolescents are not using the smartphone so much because they have social problems. But they are potentially going to have them in the future.

Source: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/en/how-smartphones-have-changed-our-lives-and-enslaved-us/

A few years ago, the average attentions lasted for 20 seconds while now attention lasts for 8 seconds.

An artist I worked with for NFT purposes, called Rossano Ferrari, taught me about the Baumann idea of society. Baumann stated the theory of “Liquid Society” and Rossano in his portraits, made a step ahead with the gaseous society. What does this mean?

The liquid society makes all the people customers and not owners. All the products are becoming services and the renting activity spreads over.

Rossano represented then the Gaseous society, made of parts that do not touch them, that almost do not interact, that fill the space where they are inserted, without their own shape or consistency.

Gaseous society represents how people are getting more and more detached, with less interaction and high speed movements (representing anxiety and frenetic living).

Source: the painting from Rossano Ferrari. You can see the Masks on top, as in the transition from the solid to the gaseous society, all of us will wear a mask to adapt to the society standards.
Here is his NFT profile: https://rarible.com/rossanoferrari

Besides, just after reading the comment from Tarazkp, I found this article

Source: https://video.repubblica.it/salute/dossier/fai-ginnastica-con-il-tuo-medico/come-curare-la-tendinite-da-smartphone-gli-esercizi-dell-ortopedico/445696/446660?ref=RHRT-BG-P1-S1-T1

It’s in Italian but the title literally says: How to heal the tendinitis from smartphone utilization.

So, 20 years ago, the doctors started suggesting how to heal the back for people staying too much on the chair.

Not it’s tendinitis from smartphone.

What will be the next one? Exercises for atrophied brains?

Source: https://www.crushpixel.com/it/stock-photo/slave-smartphone-26366.html

Mass usage of smartphones for inertial purposes (passive social networking, reading here and there, spying other contents) leads to inertia and also potential frustration.

This cocktail is a perfect mixture for creating a sense of non-adequateness into people (especially youngsters), self-discomfort that can easily lead to eating in a wrong way, losing time, losing traction and faith in their own skills as the so-called “influencers” are putting too much high standards.

What can we do to subvert this trend?