A Memory Deferred

The faint sound of the notification bell is almost like a shot of adrenaline shooting into your veins like a drug. We can’t live without that satisfying feeling of that technological heroine. Will we ever be able to put down the phone? The only connections we make on a daily basis are the ones we make to whatever network we are connecting to. What is the wifi password? That is the first question we ask at the threshold of a new friends door. Headphones? They are pure protection from the sounds of the outside word, denial to face any sort of human interaction.

Why? Why is it that are bodies are built like a program. We can’t force ourselves to connect on a deeper level, we believe the deepest level is that of the layers of the screen. What about the layers to a person? There is no layers to a screen, it is one two dimensional level that will send us into a spiraling hell. There is no way out of it once it begins. The trouble now a days is it is starting in the youngest of our society. Instead of counting their numbers (1,2,3), they are counting their comments and likes on social media.

How long can we go without the satisfying glow of the screen we hold so close? A screen that means the world to us, anything and everything feels right when we have a device is our hand. We can’t even see the disconnection, we are connected to the wifi, but are we connected to each other? How do we know if we are allowing all of our memories to become a blur. One that cannot be cleared because all we can remember is the faint glow of our screens. However, our memories are deferred because we can’t remember exactly what lies beyond that screen. Who we were with, what we were doing, and the connections we were making. Life goes on around us, sometimes even in circles, we don’t even realize what we are missing out on and how many memories become lost in the cloud.

Our life is indeed a sequence of numbers. That move quickly. We look down for hours on end not even recognizing that there are things that are more important moving right in front of us. We cannot break out of this sequence as it is certainly an addiction. Just as any other drug addiction, withdrawal will come fast the second we try to break this cycle. We cannot even imagine life without this device we hold so close. How could we ever let go from this sequence that controls our each and every move. What do we do in this situation? There may never be a simple answer to this question.

Technology and everything it encompasses is similar to the clouds are our head. The same way we can collect and store all the information we feel we need in a technological cloud, is the same way the clouds in the skye collect and store precipitation. When will it all come out and fall apart? There is no way for us to know, there is no weather forecast for technology. We are simply loading these clouds with all the information we see fit, will this be eternally satisfying? Instead of making memories we can remember ourselves, we are taking pictures we believe will last us a lifetime and entrusting them in some “cloud” that is not at all tangible.

We can continue on in this cycle for however long we see fit. The side effects of this addicting drug have already started the show through. We can no longer make the same connections, we are missing the daily occurrences that should come so naturally. We let life pass us by while we place everything of importance to us in the cloud that is constantly glooming over our head. Teenagers and people close in age to these subjects were born into this world. They know no other ways, so do we really feel like we are doing anything wrong? When we are born into a cycle and born already pre-addicted to a drug like technology, it is impossible to break. We were trained as young children to utilize this kind of technology (ie. cellphones) for everything. We can see clearly that without this addiction our lives would be completely different. Can we even imagine a world where this would not be the societal normality?

When we take a step back and try to make a mental photo album of all the memories we were not able to capture on with our cellphones, what can we actually remember? The answer to this may be little to nothing. We can no longer put full memories into place to make a big picture. We can only remember bits and pieces, the things that do not seem to hold much importance, and in this exact moment it becomes, A Dream Deferred..

Follow this hyperlink to read Michaelena Ferraro’s project statement.