Online gluttony will be moderated

One friend has just posted pictures of a recent summer trip. Another has posted wedding pics.

One of the Kardashians got divorced and another is pregnant.

The perennial presidential campaign circus heats up while the economic outlook is colder than the Arctic.

Between Facebook, the Internet, and TV, a person in modern times has hardly “alone” time.

How much can the brain, and the whole system really, gobble up?

Everyone knows we’re “overloaded” and has something to say about it. Some of us are actually raising alarms about dire consequences ranging from lack of deep thoughts and attention deficit disorder to frivolousness and lack of empathy. Some throw unhappiness and even the morphing of the human race into the mix.

I beg to differ.

We have survived the ice age, the plague, and  all the  disasters–  natural and otherwise. And I think we can survive the gluttony of being ” over plugged-in” unscathed (we may not survive our greed and arrogance, but that is another issue for another day).

This whole online gluttony resembles eating disorder. Humanity is basically acting like the proverbial kid in a candy store but will sooner or later get sick, grow out of it, and settle within a normal range.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of  the “Jenny Craigs” and the “Atkins diets” for online feeding disorder, anytime soon. It wouldn’t surprise me either if clinics for online “overindulgence”, where one would pay to be “plugged-in free”, start to pop up, and destinations, where one would pay for the privilege of having no phones, Internet, or TV at all,  become popular tourist attractions.

We will always have  the likes of that teenager from California who averaged 10, 000 messages every 24 hours for a month. But also, we will always have the deep thinkers that stand outside of it all so they can have something good to bring to us.

And just like a healthy weight and food nutritional facts have been established, an average of healthy plugged-in time and guidelines will be established (may be a unit other than hours/day will be assigned to account for age, line of work, mental maturity and so forth).

We have thrived with some of us overweight, slim, or average. We will do just fine with some of us over-connected and plugged-in 24 hours a day and some of us not at all.

ekwaysan

Social Media and Western Governments Hypocracy

Remember when we bashed Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the rest of “those” nations for going after the social media and restricting its access?

Remember when Hillary Clinton plead with Twitter to postpone their scheduled maintenance  service for a few more days so the Iranians demonstrators  can keep up the pressure against the government?

Well, this is from yesterday’s NYT :

In Britain, a Meeting on Limiting Social Media:

The government’s home minister, Theresa May, according to one account of the meeting, said that the aim was not to “discuss restricting Internet services,” but to instead “crack down on the networks being used for criminal behavior.” A spokeswoman for Ms. May said the government “would not be seeking any additional powers.”

Yeah..yeah… I believe you!

Meanwhile… back  home:

“…The [corporation] Bay Area Rapid Transit’s  decided to temporarily turn off cell phone reception in four San Francisco stations, which was in anticipation of another protest, which was in turn a response to a recent police shooting in a San Francisco BART station….”

Replace Britain in the headlines with Iran, and Bay Area Rapid Transit with Ahmadi Najad and you’d have a level 6 condemnation hurricane from all over the civilised, freedom promoting Western governments AND its subservient media.

It is barbarism and tyranny only when “they” do it. It is defending law and order, of course, when “we” do it!

Orwell matters now more than ever.

ekwaysan