The removal of my headphones, in particular, has opened up my life; I'm convinced they are the most nefarious of our gadgets, aggressively trapping people inside their heads
From a comment on one of Darren Allen's previous Q&A. He deletes them so there is no permanent link unfortunately.
I myself have stopped using headphones a long time ago, simply because they press on my ear and jaw which exacerbates my slight tinnitus. 4 But it is true that screens and the devices they plug with are particularly alienating, by making your entire attention narrow down to a small thing on the screen 5, or as the quote mentions, locking you inside your head without paying attention to anything around you.
As a result, is it surprising that people are 1) alienated from their body 2) unaware of much of what is going on around them, in their life, and in the people they spend time with 3) as a result alienated from one another 4) increasingly hedonistic and solipsistic? (more on that in the following sub-essay) I think they are all connected to one another, atomization in one aspect of your life promotes atomization in others, which is why in the modern world there isn't even a sense of a coherent all-encompassing reality, but instead a series of discrete separate bits which are connected together by linear transitions such as roads, elevators, hallways, highways.
3 As always, I would recommend Darren Allen's the Technological System
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2024-11-30