I am pretty sure that a lot of people think of the wonderful blue creatures that we have seen in the famous movie once the title of the article popped up. As mesmerizing as it might sound , the word avatar is not something I would personally strive to be. I can’t help but wonder at what it means at a deeper level.
When I enter on a social media platform all I see is avatars. People with modified pictures posting snippets of their lives. The reality is that even those snippets are not real. They are curated, maybe even manufactured through trial and error. We are presented, just like in a museum, la pièce de résistance. If you make the fatal mistake to spend a long time scrolling through the curated avatars you get depressed. It seems like everyone is happy and has their stuff together. People post pictures from vacations, uploading their best profile, putting their sunglasses on and just pretending to be cool.
Unfortunately this is not real life. And a lot of precious time gets lost while people try to pretend they have a nice life on social media instead of actually creating it. We are getting lonelier than ever while our avatars are having fun.
I just had a coffee the other day and I decided to make a little experiment: to sit at my table and just enjoy the coffee. Looking around, admiring the place. Just sitting. No phone. No screen watching. I noticed how some people sitting near me got uncomfortable. Some even stared: there must be something wrong with her, she just looks around and drinks a coffee. Almost everyone was on their phone. I think of the walking dead zombies who move just enough to get their kick. And this is what technology is being used for today. The phone becomes the other extension of ourselves when we feel awckward. It is the familiar friend that everyone has. If I hold it in my hand I can escape my boredom, my solitude, and look like I am doing fine. There is nothing important that I really do on my phone while scrolling incessantly but at least this brick of plastic gives me the chance to look normal. Otherwise I would be fidgeting like crazy.
There is an element of addiction. The notification center and the multiple apps are always ready to show us something. There is also a false feeling of missing out. It can feel like you are being left behind and forgotten unless you post what you do in your daily life. People give likes and thumbs up not because they have thought about it, but as a way of making sure that they are not forgotten. The sad thing is that with so many hearts and likes and comments there is no one to feed our cat if we leave the country for a couple of days. People no longer have meaningful conversations. Emoticons and in-app communication have become a normality.
I must admit that this reality is scary for me if I look at the cases of people who got so depressed looking at the deceitful happy life of the avatars that they decided that their life is no longer worth living. I believe that the culture of the avatar will erode our humanity and turn us into creatures who forget what real life is all about. It is more important to be connected in the present with what is happening now rather than going down the rabbit hole of the avatar show.
It is dangerous to go into the avatar museums and lose real time curating false displays of real life. What is portrayed as beautiful and magnificent should in fact be very scary…
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