the digital plague;

Back when we were younger, we, the Millennials, being the last generation to grow up in a semi-free digital world, I remember that when I was in the village for the weekend, neighbors would knock on each other’s doors asking who was going from the South to Beirut on Monday morning so they could carpool. It was the natural thing to ask, and one of many forms of organic community habits. These days people rather drive alone annxious from unwanted conversations
and connections outside our comfort zone.

Those little text messages we wrote from our moms’ phones to our love interests in school, saying: “I miss you, see you tomorrow at 4 PM, don’t reply back, giving the phone back to mom now.”

These may seem like very simple memories, yet they carry a lot to explore about where connection, relationships, options, and intimacy have landed. “Explore” might even be too light of a word to describe the serious state human connection has evolved into.

Our nervous systems have slowly but sharply acquired new behaviors that are shifting our senses toward what we are able to do versus what we truly desire or are meant to experience. The scrolling, the constant and multiple options in our DMs, the likes, the hidden likes, the hidden messages all of it has created a universe that made humans think they are in connection, even worse to live a state of an illusion of intimacy. It has led to delayed meetings, encounters, and coffee catch-ups, but even that is not the only problem we face.

These meetings are somehow still happening in between the digital universe that dominates us, yet we have moved further away from emotions, from trial and error, from deeply knowing one another, from knocking on someone’s door if they haven’t called or answered for days. From longing to see, to meet, to touch, to love, to lose, to commit, to break up, to fight, to understand, and to admire both the perfection and the craziness.

To go through the natural cycle of death and rebirth psychology that we, as human beings, were meant to experience.

Now, the digital era is, of course, a very important milestone and has brought many positives, like many recalibrations humanity went through before. But today, who is controlling who? The human mind or the digital space? Where are we standing on the spectrum?

I mean, it’s great that we are sharing, writing, and bringing global awareness, but there is also a very dark side to this. What does it mean when we repost a story about how many people are dying in South Lebanon, yet we don’t directly message our own friend from South Lebanon to ask how they are doing?

What does it mean when I like someone’s political view, but I don’t call for a group gathering at my house to discuss it further and build on it? What does it mean when I like and share every post about nature, love, kids, art, food, and living, yet I barely practice them in real life? It means