Touchscreen | Marshall "Soulful" Jones | TEDxMontreal

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
Marshall Jones makes us rethink our digital culture through an engaging slam poetry performance.

Introducing the new Apple iPerson
complete with multitouch.

Doesn't it feel good to touch?
Doesn't it feel good to touch?

Compatible with you iPod, in your iPad.

Doesn't it feel good to touch?
Doesn't it feel good to touch?

No friends: there is an app for that.

No life: there is an app for that.

You're a complete loser:
these is an app for that.

Doesn't it feel good to touch?
Doesn't it feel good to touch?

Doesn't it feel good to touch?

My world, my world has become so digital,
I have forgotten what that feels like.

It was difficult to connect
when friends formed cliques.

Now it's even more difficult to connect
now that clicks form friends.

But who am I to judge?

I face Facebook more than books face me,
hoping to book face-to-faces.

I update my status 420 spaces
to prove I am still breathing failure.

To do this daily means my whole
web wide world will forget that I exist.

But with 3,000 friends online
and only five I can count in real life,

why wouldn't I spend more time in a world
where there're more people that 'like' me?

Wouldn't you?

Here, it doesn't matter
if I'm an amateur person,

as long as I have a 'pro' file.

My smile is 50% genuine; 50% genuine HD.

You would need blu-rays
to read what is really me.

But I'm not that focused.

Ten tabs open hoping
my problems are resolved,

with a 1600 by 1700 resolution,

proven, we might have
missed a step in this evolution.

Doubled over, we used to sit in tree tops.

So we swung down to stand upright
and someone slipped a disc,

and now we are doubled over at desktops.

From the Garden of Eden,
to the branches of Macintosh,

apple picking
has always come at a great cost.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

iPod, iMac, iPhone, iChat.

I can do all of these things
without making eye contact.

We used to sprint to pick
and store blackberries.

Now we run to the Sprint Store
and pick Blackberries, it's scary.

I can't hear the sound of mother nature
speaking over all this tweeting,

and our ability to feel
along with it is fleeting.

You would think headphone jacks
inject in the flesh the way we connect,

to disconnect power on,
until we are powerless.

We might be love drugged.

Like e-pills.

So we E*TRADE, email,
e-motion like e-commerce,

because now money can buy love
for $9.95 a month.

Click: to proceed the checkout.

Click: to x out where
our hearts once where.

Click: I've uploaded this hug,
I hope she gets it.

Click: I'm making love to my wife,
I hope she's logged in.

Click: I'm holding my daughter
over a Skype conference call,

while she's crying in the crib
in the next room.

Click: So when my phone
goes off in my hip,

iTouch and iTouch and iTouch
and iTouch and iTouch,

because in a world
where laughter is never heard,

and voices are only read,

we're so desperate to feel

that we hope our Technologic
can reverse the universe,

and so the screen can touch us back.

And maybe one day it will.

When our technology
is advanced enough...

to make us human again.

(Applause)