We’re Slaves to the Laptop Screen and Can’t Escape.

Digitisation is a remarkable thing. You can carry a whole library with you, work and study anywhere, and then switch over to Netflix to wind down. But are we seeing our laptops more and more? Are you recharging suspiciously frequently? Your bag becomes a constant sidekick wherever you go and your charger a vital lifeling like one your own arteries.

Work

The vast majority of us spend all day on our computers. Fair enough. The generation before us were the same with big cumbersome desktops. However, more and more is being condensed into our wafer thin Macs. Your notes, your emails, your Skype calls. You can switch off your laptop but the internet remains buzzing. Whole books, articles and data sheets are on there in PDF form. Your news comes through there since you haven’t bought a paper in years. Fancy some social contact? You could talk to Dave from IT, or you can message your best mate who is also stranded in an office the other side of town. Even your lunch you probably aim for somewhere with power sockets. And this is the real catch. When your laptop stops, so do you. You become a Gollum-like form searching for the precious power sockets. You are disconnected, adrift. But this is what happens when so much goes through that battery that it drains quickly.

Pleasure

So it’s the end of the day. Netflix? No, you feel like something a bit more active- like shopping. Online shopping. Another hour plugged in (and that goes for your laptop too), as you trawl through eBay and Asos. Maybe you wish to relax to some music? But you haven’t bought a CD since 2010 and you can’t be arsed to go through the effort of spinning some vinyl. You have whole back-catalogues on Spotify for free, with only an occasional advert. How are your finances? Checking only needs your card, card reader, secure internet, personal details, and your sanity.

The Weakness

Now this is tinfoil hat talk. This is all amazing technology. However, it remains that with innovations come certain vulnerabilities. You use your fingers all the time. In fact, if you don’t touch type you probably use two fingers all the time. What about your eyes? We all know that contrary to what we are told we are quite used to sleeping after scrolling every social media format we have. But we still get tired. We cannot escape the screen. When we finish one task we close up, only to realise the next thing is also online.

Is your attention span waning? Do you now have to flick open a few more tabs so you can shop and talk whilst watching a film or listening to a lecture? Can you even read a book anymore? We have so much available to us so easily that it is scary. We don’t even have proper hobbies anymore because this is simpler and faster.

Our functions are becoming confused. If we can’t sleep one night we can open the laptop, see what’s happening, watch some TV, maybe do some work. Surely we are not built for such flexibility and notice these things in our partners but not ourselves. We never switch off the laptop, nevermind ourselves. We become permanently distracted, irritable and stretched. Do we need separate laptops for work and pleasure? We’re going to get through them faster so we might as well. They are our cookery book, our newspaper, our TV, our office, our travel guide and dating agency. Those keys are wearing thin and we can’t close the tabs.

The post We’re Slaves to the Laptop Screen and Can’t Escape. appeared first on Felix Magazine.