We live in an extremely connected world now a days. So extremely connected, in fact, that we can almost live vicariously/virtually through others in every aspect of life. With Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, we can practically share any and every little thing we do throughout the day if we want to. We can post photos of our food to share meals with others, we can post Snapchat stories on the hour, every hour, of our current situations and we can post an Instagram photo of our daily highlight. Essentially, if we wanted to, we could post so much that we could make the question, "What did you do today?" irrelevant.
With so much posting, sharing and texting these days, it's easy to become so 'connected' that we become disconnected with everything/everyone else. It's easy to get so caught up in trying to capture a moment through the lense of a device that we miss the moment itself in its reality. We can become so focused on sharing our experience virtually with the World Wide Web that we miss the experience ourselves. After all, experiences are about experiencing something, not just sharing it on the Internet.
Last night, I went to a concert, and for the first time at a concert, I didn't take a photo, I didn't take a video and I didn't take anything to post to social media. I just 'sat back and enjoyed the show,' as they say. It was nice, and then, today, something amazing happened. I realized, for some strange reason, when people asked me in person how the concert was, I had much more to say about it than usual. It was like I had no photos or videos to show for it, so I had to recreate the shows sites, sounds and moments in my head and replay them for the person asking about it. Surprisingly, it seemed to come to life in my mind, and I was able to describe it better than normal. Now, I don't know if this was because it was an amazing concert or if it really was because I enjoyed the moment more than before, I'm just saying there was definitely a difference.
I'm not sure if there's something to be said for being too connected to our technology that we miss reality, but I do believe that there's something to be said for missing moments when were preoccupied with reliving other people's moments in the palms of our hands. Don't miss reality. Be present and enjoy it.
-Cliff
Cliff's Note: Look up.