Phone Zombies
Although there is no clear, nor yet accepted, definition of the combined word "phone-zombie" (or phone zombie) in the common English dictionary (like Collins or others), after years of experience and suffering of their weird behaviors on a daily basis, we can clearly come up with something along the following lines:
Phone-Zombie (or Phone Zombie):
Noun - Singular (plural: Phone-Zombies or Phone Zombies)
An inconsiderate person oblivious to the rest of the world as constantly focusing on his or her mobile phone (while walking or doing anything else for that matter). Usually characterized by a hunchback posture, a bended head (between 30 and 60 degree angle), a slow and unpredictable walking pace, causing them to hold other people up or bump into them, likely to cause an argument or even accident.
I think that is a pretty clear and straight forward definition of what a "phone-zombie" is, isn't it?
And you know what's worst than phone zombies? Depressed phone zombies... (sigh)...
They are like a virus with exponential growth, spreading everywhere, demoralized and emotionless. A real invasion!
This morning again, I saw many of them. It was a frightening sight. It started immediately after I closed my apartment door, as I entered the lift going down to reach the lobby of my residence. I barely set a foot inside the lift that I saw them. Immediately recognizable, looking haggard, disoriented, with an incomprehensible expression on their faces reflecting a failure to understand why their phones were not responding to their fingers pushing and pressing repeatedly on the screen, unable to comprehend the reason of the lack of network signal inside the lift.
The lift arrived at the lobby. I let them get out first. Big mistake, I forgot that they were walking in slow motion. Heads down, hunched back, already searching for something on the screen with their agitated fingers as soon as they were out of the lift. I passed them and continue walking within the large lobby corridor, passing by many other dead-brains.
Catching up with them at a fast pace, one by one, once only a few steps behind, I was witnessing their faces being swallowed by the eerie light, acting like a vacuum sucking up their very soul. It was too late, they had already transformed into phone zombies. And, every morning, I re-live the same tortured scene over and over again, powerless, feeling the distress already growing in.
Discreetly glancing at them, while passing them by, I could not help noticing how badly under the spell they were. Quasimodo posture. Heads down looking at their phones. Earbuds on for complete immersion. Sad, unsmiling, blank faces. Empty, emotion-less, depressed, tired, puffed-up eyes, from the lack of sleep. Captivated by the light, staring at the screen, completely unresponsive and inattentive, totally oblivious to their surroundings. A blueish, maladive hue on their faces being so close to the screens. Like a herd of hypnotized "Gollums", changed, over time, from their original shape and form by the mesmerizing power of an object they became totally dependent on and without which they would not be able to function or do anything or even survive (...my precious!!!!...).
A sad sight in fact. And it is the same in the street, the same at the train station, same in the train, same everywhere in fact. And every morning, going to work, and every night, coming back home from work, while surrounded and trapped in the flock with no possibility to escape, whether in the street or in the train, I'm asking myself the same questions: What happened to mankind? To us? Am I like that too? Am I like them? And I know that, sadly, I'm no exception to the rule. I'm also addicted and under the spell despite my vain efforts to try not to be.
I always have a book in my bag. I started to read it last month. I'm only on page 5, but it is a good book so far... Maybe I should read a few pages instead of looking at my phone... But I love that game I just downloaded, and I want to check some posts and articles on my Facebook and Instagram profiles, LinkedIn too, maybe... Oh, I just received some notifications, I've got to check them now... Should I post that picture I took over dinner last night? It's yesterday news, but I'm sure I can still get a few likes for it...
Like the rest of us, I'm also a desperate and incurable case... (sigh)
"Human on a leash", that's what we are. Like a human walks a dog, smartphones walk us. The devices now control their owners, not the other way around as it used to be. Smartphones are the remotes control of their owners. Without them, the human mind is disabled, unable to "compute" properly. So, the phones now do computing and artificial intelligence do the thinking. Men have become puppets with lobotomized brains at the mercy of machine self-learning algorithms, AI and robotics.
And when I say "lobotomized brains", it's because I still remember that not that long ago, roughly 35 years ago (for my generation), when personal PC computers were extremely rudimentary and slow, and home phones were the norm and cellphones were like a foot-long brick (like the 1983 Motorola Dyna Tac) and were only used to, ...well, phone (what else?), people were still using their brain.
And they had no other choice, as, back then, people had to remember first names and last names of their family members, friends, co-workers, and even other names like those of the neighbors, the people at the local stores (the bakery, the butcher, etc..) and fresh markets, even the people from the various companies coming to repair stuff in the apartment or the house (the plumber, the electrician, the phone guy, the TV guy, etc...).
Atop of names, people also had to remember adresses, phone numbers (even phone extension sometimes), as well as birthdays, name's days, dates of special occasions; also be organize and remember things to do and to be done, deadlines, meetings, appointments, but also details about what people like and even when they like it, and so much more like words, definitions, meanings, etc.... our brain used to be able to do all of that and we apparently only used 10% of its capacity back then... Our brain was like all the apps of our smartphones combined together. It was like having your phone book, contacts, agenda, notebook, calendar, calculator, as well as a profile and historical data on everyone you knew and met.
Which confirms what I was saying above, men are puppets with lobotomized brains at the mercy of machine self-learning algorithms, AI and robotics, which are constantly evolving and rapidly entering the world of quantum mechanics. At this pace, becoming faster, better, more intelligent and more independent, it would not be surprising if machines overcome and overthrow humans in the very near future. It almost seems unavoidable, the student will (if it has not already) become the master.
As nobody seems to care within the stratospheric ranks of our society and nothing seems to be done to change or reverse the actual course of how things are done and dealt with, men will soon crash into the wall he has erected himself over the last 200 years (roughly), then will surely and consequently live and evolve into a dystopian world that has already been foreseen and described in countless books, articles and movies. A world somewhere in between:
"1984" (George Orwell - published in 1949),
"Fahrenheit 451"(Ray Bradbury - published in 1953),
"The Minority Report" (a 1956 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick)
"Soylent Green" (a 1973 movie directed by Richard Fleischer based on the book "Make Room! Make Room!" by Harry Harrison published in 1966)
"Blade Runner" (a 1982 movie directed by Ridley Scott)
"The Terminator" (a 1984 science fiction film directed by James Cameron)
"The Matrix" (A 1999 movie by the Wachowski brothers (at the time, now brother and sister)
"Ex Machina" (a 2014 science fiction film written and directed by Alex Garland)
Basically, this is where you (we) will fit in this not so distant dystopian future...
It is sad, but it is the world we now live in. A frustrated and frustrating world of the "me first" generation, where most people boast out loud opinionated boring banalities on social networks, with egoistic and narcissistic attitudes, searching for recognitions, credits and praises, while having no interest for the rest of the world but themselves, thus nothing interesting to say or discuss, and nothing else to share than weird selfies or picture of themselves doing the same thing over and over, or mostly unverified and fake news and "supposedly" life-enhancing ugly snap-shots and short videos.
Billion of phone-head zombies with lifeless bodies wandering the streets all around the globe, especially in the big cities, night and day, 24/7, 365 days/year. Thinking that they are someone and correspond to something in what is, in fact, an inexistent virtual world, where they are stuck and blinded from the reality by false hope, where they don't correspond to anything except maybe being an ID number, a profile amongst others, and where they have completely lost all reasons, guidances, ambitions, desires and purposes, and contacts with others. In short, where they have lost the power of the mind to think, understand, comprehend and form judgements logically and rationally.
In this day and age of advanced technology and countless gadgets of communications, it has never been so easy to speak, talk and communicate with someone, exchanging words and images, even feelings via emoji and icons... Yet, no one is communicating anymore. No one talks to other people. There is no interaction between people anymore. People rarely notice others, and usual daily greetings like: "hello", "goodbye", "see you later", "I'll talk to you soon", "I'll call you back", etc... or even the usual daily politeness ("thank you", "sorry", "excuse me", "may I please...", "could you please...", etc...) seem to have disappeared.
Where is the time when people used to take, or even make, the time to talk with others and care for others? Where is the time when people used to greet others? or go to see each other at their house or elsewhere like at the terrasse of a café for example? or reply to a question, a letter, an email or a phone call or even more recently a text? Where is it? Long gone it seems...
People are too absorbed with their phone and with themselves, alone in their own world, cut from the external world and the rest of the living by a screen, captivated by its "always-ON" mesmerizing blue light. Unable to react to anything. Unaware of the surrounding real world. And although they have all the tools they need to be in contact with each other, people don't communicate anymore.
People are now stressed, depressed, alone, living a lonely life, solitaire and full of anguish. Psychologically traumatised by a lifestyle they've created by and for themselves. We are living an age where low self-esteem, low self-confidence, solitude, fatigue, anxiety, doubts, fears, depression and suicidal thoughts, are recurring common disorders affecting the lives of more and more people, especially the millennials, or Generation "Y" (1981-1996) and the one after, Generation "Z" (1996 - present).
And don't get me wrong, dependance to smartphones is not the only culprit of this situation (people having more psychological and physical weaknesses and disorders), there are many factors at work here. Too many to list them all, but to name a few that have contributed to life as we know it nowadays and all its flaws: politics, religions and money. I continue to believe that the world would be a better place without these 3 factors. But I won't extend my thoughts on that as it is too complex and intricate of a subject to be discussed and resumed in a few sentences on this blog.
Work in progress - to be finished soon
I barely avoided being bumped or even crushed thousands of times during the 10 minutes between my apartment and the train, and then also during the 12 minutes between the train and work.
Work in progress - to be finished soon
Thank you,
The Courteous Stickman (Domelgabor)
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