I have 422 friends, yet I am lonely.
I speak to all of them everyday, yet none of them
really know me.
The problem I have sits in the spaces
between looking into their eyes or at a name on a screen.
I took a step back and opened my eyes.
I looked around and realized that this media we call social
is anything but, when we open our computers
and it's our doors we shut.
All this technology we have, it's just an illusion.
Community, companionship, a sense of inclusion.
Yet, when you step away from this device of delusion,
you awaken to see a world of confusion.
A world where we're slaves to the technology we mastered,
where information gets sold by some rich greedy bastard.
A world of self-interest, self-image self-promotion,
where we all share our best bits,
but leave out the emotion.
We're at our most happy with an experience we share.
But is it the same, if no one is there?
Be there for your friends and they'll be there too,
but no one will be, if a group message will do.
We edit and exaggerate, crave adulation.
We pretend not to notice the social isolation.
We put our words into order until our lives are glistening.
We don't even know if anyone is listening.
Being alone isn't the problem, let me just emphasize.
If you read a book, paint a picture, or do some exercise,
you're being productive and present, not reserved
and recluse.
You're being awake and attentive and putting your time
to good use.
So when you're in public and you start to feel alone,
put your hands behind your head, step away from the phone.
You don't need to stare at your menu or your contact list.
Just talk to one another.
Learn to coexist.
I can't stand to hear the silence of a busy commuter
train where no one wants to talk for the fear of looking insane.
We're becoming unsocial.
It no longer satisfies to engage with one another
and look into someone's eyes.
We're surrounded by children who, since they were born,
have watched us living like robots and think it's the norm.
It's not very likely you'll make world's greatest dad
if you can't entertain a child without using an iPad.
When I was a child I'd never be home.
Be out with my friends, on our bikes we would roam.
I'd wear holes in my trainers and graze up my knees.
We'd build our own clubhouse high up in the trees.
Now the park's so quiet it gives me
a chill, see no children outside and the swings hanging still.
There's no skipping, no hopscotch, no church,
and no steeple.
We're a generation of idiots, smartphones, and dumb people.
So look up from your phone.
Shut down the display.
Take in your surroundings, make the most of today.
Just one real connection is all it
can take, to show you the difference that being there
can make.
Be there in the moment that she gives you the look
that you remember forever.
That's when love overtook.
The time she'll first hold your hand or first kiss your lips,
the time you first disagree, but still love her to bits.
The time you don't have to tell hundreds
of what you've just done, because you want to share
this moment with just this one.
The time you'll sell your computer
so you can buy a ring, for the girl of your dreams
who is now the real thing.
The time you'll want to start a family, and the moment when
you first hold your little girl, and get to fall in love again.
The time she keeps you up at night and all you want is rest.
The time you wipe away the tears as your baby flees the nest.
The time your baby girl returns with a boy for you to hold,
and the time he calls you granddad
and makes you feel real old.
The time you take in all you've made,
just by giving life attention.
And how you're glad you didn't waste it
by looking down at some invention.
The time you hold your wife's hand, sit down beside her bed.
You tell her that you love her, lay a kiss upon her head.
She then whispers to you quietly,
as her heart gives a final beat, that she's
lucky she got stopped by that lost boy in the street.
But none of these times ever happened.
You never had any of this.
When you're too busy looking down,
you don't see the chances you miss.
So look up from your phone.
Shut down those displays.
We have a finite existence, a set number of days.
Don't waste your life getting caught in the net,
as when the end comes, nothing is worse than regret.
I'm guilty too of being part of this machine,
this digital world, we are heard but not seen.
Where we type as we talk and we read as we chat.
Where we spend hours together without making eye contact.
So don't give into a life where you follow the hype.
Give people your love.
Don't give them your like.
Disconnect from the need to be heard and defined.
Go out into the world.
Leave distractions behind.
Look up from your phone.
Shut down that display.
Stop watching this video.
Live life the real way.