Almost everyone's life-the sensory experience of learning, survival, and death, is increasingly using screens as a medium, except for those who are very wealthy.
The screen is not only low-cost, but also makes other things cheaper. Any place where a screen can be installed (such as classrooms, hospitals, airports, restaurants) can reduce costs. And any activity that can be performed on the screen becomes cheaper. The texture and tactile experience of life are becoming smooth glass.
The rich don't live like this. They become more and more afraid of screens. They want their children to play with building blocks, and private schools that do not use electronic screens are booming. Labor is more expensive, but the rich are willing and able to pay. Compelling interpersonal interactions, such as not using a mobile phone, not going to social networks, and not responding to emails all day long, have become a status symbol.
All this has led to a peculiar new reality: human contact is becoming a luxury.
As more and more screens appear in the lives of the poor, the screens are disappearing from the lives of the rich. The richer you are, the less time you spend on the screen.
The CEO of the Luxury Association, Milton Pedraza, advises companies on how the richest people want to live and consume. He found that the rich wanted to spend money on anything related to people.
"What we see now is that human participation is becoming a luxury." Pedraza said.
According to the association’s research, it is estimated that the expenditure on leisure travel, catering and other experiences exceeds the expenditure on goods. Pedraza believes this is a direct response to the surge in screens.
"Human participation can trigger positive behaviors and emotions—think about the joy of massage. Now, education, healthcare... everyone is starting to pay attention to how to make the experience human," Pedraza said. It’s very important now."
This is a rapid change. Since the rapid development of personal computers in the 1980s, setting up at home or carrying technology products with you has always been a symbol of wealth and power. Early users with disposable income rush to buy the latest electronic products and then show off everywhere. In 1984, the first Mac computer went on the market, priced at about 2500 US dollars (equivalent to today's 6000 US dollars). According to Wirecutter, a product review site owned by The New York Times, the best Chromebook laptops today cost only $470.
"In the past, having a pager was important because it showed that you were an important and busy person." said Joseph Nunes, head of the marketing department at the University of Southern California and research status marketing.
Now, he says, the opposite is true: "If you are really at the highest level, you don't have to answer anyone's calls, but they must answer your calls."
The joy of the Internet revolution—at least initially, lies in its democratic nature. . Whether you are rich or poor, Facebook or that Facebook, Gmail or Gmail. Moreover, they are all free. This is a bit popular and unattractive. Just as some studies have shown that it is unhealthy to spend time on these advertising-supported platforms. The things that the rich do less than the poor, such as drinking soda and smoking, all begin to seem to no longer reflect their social status.
The rich have the ability to choose not to sell their data and attention as products. However, the poor and the middle class do not have the resources to make this choice.
Now, people have been touching screens since they were young. The National Institutes of Health supported the establishment of a significant brain development study involving more than 11,000 children. Preliminary results showed that children who watched the screen for more than two hours a day scored lower on thinking and language tests. The most disturbing thing is that the study also found that the brains of children who watch the screen for a long time are different from those of their peers. Some children's cerebral cortex becomes thinner prematurely (scientists don't know what this means, and further research is needed). Another study also found that in adults, there is a correlation between screen time and depression.
A young child who learns to play virtual building blocks in an iPad game does not have the ability to build real building blocks. Dimitri K Ristakis said.
In a small town near Wichita, Kansas, the school budget has been so tight that the state Supreme Court ruled that the school was insufficiently funded. School classrooms have been replaced by learning software. Nowadays, most of the class time is when students use computers quietly. In Utah, thousands of children use computers at home to participate in a short-term government-provided preschool education program.
Technology companies have bothered to persuade public schools to equip each student with a laptop, claiming that this will prepare children for a screen-filled future. However, those who really build this kind of future do not educate their own children in this way.
In Silicon Valley, more and more people believe that spending time in front of the screen is unhealthy. There, the most popular elementary school is the local Waldorf School, which promises to provide a way of education that returns to nature and uses almost no screen.
Therefore, as children from rich families spend less and less time in front of the screen as they grow up, children from poor families spend more and more time in front of the screen. A person's degree of adaptation to interpersonal communication may become a new class symbol.
Of course, human contact is not exactly like organic food or Hermes bags. However, the Silicon Valley giants have been working together to confuse the public and let everyone spend more time in front of the screen. They tell the poor and middle class that screens are good and important for them and their children. Large technology companies have recruited a large number of psychologists and neuroscientists to study how to make users' eyeballs and brains attracted by the screen as quickly as possible, and for as long as possible.
Therefore, the contact between people becomes scarce.
There is also the reality that in our increasingly isolated culture, many traditional meeting places and social structures have disappeared, and screens are filling this vital gap.
