Losing Touch… - Help.com

Losing Touch…

I have been having this frightening reoccurring dream lately, and in my dream I am looking into a dark, dank and dirty room, furniture-less. In one of the corners of the room there is a young boy, about 12-13 years old, slumped against the wall and I notice that he is wearing glowing green glasses… Intrigued, I approach him and see that these ‘glasses’ have a cable running from them which is plugged into the wall. The kid looks expressionless, and I notice that his clothes are moth eaten, his mouth is agape, he looks a mess. I reach out my hand and touch his shoulder and there is no response. Frustrated, I shake him, hoping that he will come to his senses and take off the radioactive looking glasses. Still nothing. I spend the next few minutes (what seems like an eternity) yelling, screaming, shaking him, begging him to wake up and see me. It’s then that I realize that these ‘glasses’ are not just glasses, but he is plugged into a virtual world and is living in mind in this world, but in real life, his health is fading, his life falling to pieces… Finally, I decide to unplug the mysterious glasses. I pull it from the socket and in a fit of anger I rip them from his face and throw them across the room. They smash on the wall, and I turn to see the boy for the first time, I see his human eyes. He looks at me for a few seconds, bewildered, and then suddenly his eyes look vacant. A groan resounds from within his throat, and he wheezes, and I watch helplessly as his head turns and he slides down to collapse on the floor, dead.

Now this probably sounds all dramatic, but this dream, which I have had a few times now during the past two/three weeks, I believe is sprouting from a deep unsettled fear that I have developed lately about the state of humankind, and where we are headed.

It seems to me that virtual reality is taking over. It has only been thirty, forty years since the digital revolution really began, and I see that we as a race are rapidly becoming too reliant upon computers and technology to survive. Now I don’t have a problem with progressing forward in terms of intelligence and medicine. But why do I get this feeling that humans are becoming too isolated, too distant from one another? Texting has replaced conversation, IMs, social websites, gaming websites where a player can create and control a virtual warrior or creature and interact with other virtual players in an online realm. I feel like we are losing touch, and we are headed for a future not too far off from the boy in my dream… and it really makes me wonder, and panic, thinking that this future non-reality is entirely possible.

I know many of you will disagree with me on this, and say that most of what I have mentioned is harmless and a good way of interacting with other people. But I think that real life interaction can not be beaten and replaced, and I see it becoming a thing of the past where children play and have friends and talk and laugh, and more and more would rather sit at home on their computer staring bug eyed at their screens, talking and playing with each other through these fantasy characters and creatures, getting lost in a world that does not exist and calling it a night…

I am so disturbed by this. I don’t want my children or my children’s children to be like that boy in my dream. I may be paranoid and over reacting but, I can’t help this feeling. It irks me.

This open post was written 2 months, 2 weeks ago | V/U/S: 158, 7, 5 | Edit Post | Leave a reply | Report Post

This post has no tags. Please, help out and add some! (How Tags Affect Reciprocity)

A logged in and verified Help.com member has the ability to setup a Friends List and invite others to help with posts.