The Mad World

For this week' blog, I wanted to write about a video I watched. The video is an animation in black and white of a little boy walking through a crowd. He notices that everyone around him is looking down at their phones, and don't even know that he's there sometimes. He keeps trying to get their attention, but everyone else is so preoccupied with their phones that they are unable to see him. The only time people do notice him, however, is when he accidentally interrupts what they are doing on their phones and they become angry at him. This causes him to become very sad and to sit on the sidewalk and not even attempt to get anyone's attention because they will either ignore him or become angry with him.

The video shows how everyone today is extremely hyper-connected and obsessed with their phones. We as a society have become so addicted to our phones and being connected to the world that we have lost our ability to connect with others. We spend so much time on Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook that we have almost forgotten what is means to have a real, genuine relationship with someone else. I think this video is very representative of our society today and how we worship technology and being connected and the temporary validation we get from a certain number of likes and comments. There is another part in the video where it depicts everyone watching a video of a girl happily dancing, but everyone makes fun of her. This leads her to be ashamed of herself and eventually leads her to commit suicide. And this does happen today. People do become depressed or commit suicide because of mean things people day or do online.

The video ends with a massive crowd of people looking down at their phones, unaware of the cliff they are about to walk over. It is only once they reach the cliff that they realize what has happened, but by that point it is too late. Being connected isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can become very detrimental to society once it gets in the way of face-to-face connection with people.