The Digital Slaves of the 21st Century
by lilith Sunday, Jan 6 2013, 11:46pm
international / prose / post

It hadn’t really hit home until I read this on a previous post: “In ancient Rome the State utilized chains and physical bonds to restrain their slaves, however, today's new slave groups have been far more effectively enslaved via DIGITAL MEANS, especially [via] the ubiquitous 'smartphone' and other … 'smart' software packages and portable digital devices. Indeed, today's slaves wear their digital chains with pride; they derive a (perverse) sense of belonging as members of the largest group of slaves known to history.”

Just take a look around today, people in the street, driving, shopping at supermarkets, waiting at train stations and in waiting rooms, more and more people EVERYWHERE have their faces buried (captured attention) in their 'smartphones' and other ‘smart’ devices. So what’s the harm, you say -- while you send a 'txt msg' to a ‘digital’ friend?

The immediate answer is, there’s no harm in moderation and in a sane, balanced social context but moderation was abandoned when insidious, INTRUSIVE and extraordinarily revealing social networking packages were developed – Facebook was developed with financial and other assistance from a CIA front company, notwithstanding the Corporate mass media push to launch it!

Who would have thought that average people would abandon their better judgement and openly reveal to the world, forever, their personal intimate details including their real identities, to questionable and unknown third parties on request? Even burnt-out former hacker, Julian Assange stated that smartphones are, 'surveillance devices that also make calls!’

Needless to say, it was Christmas for police, regulators and other agencies, who quickly nick-named Facebook, ‘Tracebook;’ the people’s cyber revolution had been turned to the advantage of State regulators and private industry – with the desperate assistance of the alienated masses that to this day can’t get enough of this technology. Though it is made plain in the fine print that users were/are legally surrendering their personal information to third party Corporations (and others) forever. Information which we now know would be shared with regulators and utilised for targeted marketing, surveillance and other clandestine purposes; but that’s all OK as long as ‘I’ have lots of ‘friends’ and ‘belong!’

However, the hard reality today is users are becoming less and less capable of sustaining Real long term friendships and relationships; it seems that digital slaves are paying a heavy price for their ‘phoney’ addictions and desperate needs.

The digital generation is becoming more and more socially inept in face to face relationships. To compensate for this failure/lack they seek quick (stimuli) returns; transient thrills become poor substitutes for the fulfilment and deep satisfaction derived from meaningful, intimate, enduring relationships, which leads the desperate 'digitals' to become even more reliant on the digital medium for ‘friendships’ and to fill the void created when a social species is insulated from real intimacy via digital means!

YET it didn’t have to be this way, the early days of computer/cyber development were anarchic and the new technology promised real freedom; however, freedom is anathema to the Corporations/State so those forces immediately and consciously set out to appropriate the medium for their own purposes and it appears they have succeeded – do you remember Marshall McLuhan's, “the medium is the message?”