Just as the most frenetic movements can never compensate for the lack of action, the excess of communication can never compensate for the lack of content.
The data storm that hits even the most isolated inhabitants of this earth every day essentially leads to four situations:
- Misunderstanding and rejection caused by the harassment of news
- Confusion in the calculation of priorities caused by a tough and subtle marketing action
- A feeling of imminent disaster due to the nature of the message: generally of danger and threat
- Lack of relevant and possibly effective response
To describe the communicative anomaly that afflicts us and that, along with the omnipresence of music, slows down the natural social intellectual metabolism, I will take as an example a simple scheduled flight.
Let’s imagine that you are traveling on a plane from Rome to Paris.
During the flight, the useful and indispensable external information concerning the planes that we will cross on our way, as well as some information about our plane and of course the weather.
Information about flights between Sydney and Singapore would not be of any use and in any case unnecessary to process.
The information that is exchanged between our flight and the control tower is expressed in words, with timing and coded confirmations: the aim is to ensure maximum understanding.
Finally, everything that happens on board our plane is recorded in the black box, which will be used to record experiences and avoid the repetition of preventable errors.
In our daily lives, we deal with a very different situation.
Information is intrusive and our attention is being diverted by news about events in other countries or other continents.
The result is the loss of efficiency in our tasks and the inability to develop a judgment that is a precursor to any reaction.
At the end of the workday, exhaustion and rejection lead to adjustment.
How information is reported consists mostly of arbitrary summaries that convey a grossly obscured judgment.
This additional factor prevents the distracted listener from developing a pertinent reaction.
And finally, there is no reference to chronology, evolution, recent memory or history.
A bomb will seem to be the first, and by fear also the last, and the difficulties will seem insurmountable not being able to rely on the experience of those who have been through much worse before.
Our right to know must be nurtured at selected times.
The «authenticity «of the message must be guaranteed.
Memory is evoked whenever possible.
Accurate information and communication in time and words and structuring memory.
For those who, like me, were born before the arrival of the last millennium, all this may seem somewhat simplistic. Also those who, arrived later, are lucky enough to be taught to listen and to think.
For others, it is a different story.
How did we arrive at this anti-cultural avalanche that is presented as “evolution”, “equality”, “democracy” and “technical progress”?
How couldn’t we realize, or claim, that this new ignorance leads to sadness and social isolation creating an addiction to forced consumption?
It is not a question of evolution, because languages evolve by changing, but not with a loss of words.
It is not equality, because living together and tolerance between people do not need a dissimilation of cultures.
It is not democracy, because drowning a people with very detailed communications will never hide the lack of transparency on the objectives to be reached.
And finally, it is not technical progress, because all our computer gadgets support clear and complete communications perfectly.
If you think about it, you have to add the “speed” factor to this equation. Being there without being alive. Knowing without understanding.
But in any case, “immediately».
Probably at this rate, instead of sending a picture of every plate we eat, we will send online our heart rate or our daily biological variables…
Following this line, the communication becomes even useless.
According to clear and imposed directives, the individual becomes an element with no consciousness and no willingness.
The authorities decide what, when and how.
The interests of the top are imposed as indispensable solutions to the bottom.
So what happens?
Slow down the answers, and fill them with meaning.
Select the information to be accepted.
Accept the intrinsic loneliness of the human being, don’t stay “connected” all the time.
Describe an event with words and not only with images.
Write: “today I experienced strong emotions”, instead of sending wide-eyed emoticons with a tongue out in the wind.
Use all the words in our language, and then we will use all the neurons in our brain and ignite all the feelings in our soul.
Let’s not create generations of being-existent-as-consumers.
Let us equip our children with history and humanity so that they keep their memory and seek life.
So that they do not become the fast lanes outside the station.
