h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

With most people now seeming to have smart phones, I think we’ve stopped talking. People get onto the train, tram, tube or bus or even as a passenger in a car and the phone comes out. They log into Twitter or Facebook and catch up on what people have been saying, or they read the news or a blog to find out what’s been going on. But they don’t talk. It’s not quiet though because they’ve all got headphones in with the volume level just high enough to not hear the loud music coming from the anti-social git halfway down the carriage. For a society of people that are chatting constantly about inane drivel, we’re not talking much.

And is it inane drivel? Most of it I think. It used to be that there were only a few channels of television over here, and some radio. Then that number grew, and grew. That’s okay, I don’t have a problem with that. But to try and fill all of these hours of broadcast production companies came up with the idea of “just stick the public on” so we got Reality TV and the “Celeb Culture” and everyone not only wants to be famous, but also wants to do very little to earn the title of celebrity. Everyone seems to think that their every word should be hung onto by an army of adoring fans. The plethora of gossip magazines that line the shelves of pretty much any convenience store pay testament to this. “Bob did this” and “Kate did that”, names have obviously been changed because I don’t actually know any of these people names. An endless parade of identical looking fake orange plastic dolls. But people buy these magazines, they’re seen to make money so others imitate and produce their own magazines, which people buy, they make money, so people imitate the success and we end up with another media stream full of endless drivel perpetuating the endless cycle of Celeb Culture.

Which brings us back to the start. Twitter is now constantly suggesting I follow such educated luminaries as Jon Snow. Sorry? Is he more than a news reporter now? I don’t watch much television and have no idea what he does these days. It’s suggested Simon Mayo. I listen to radio even less than I watch television. Why would I want to read what he has to say? Those are the only names of the Celebs it’s suggested that I recognise. I went through all of its suggestions to see who these people are, and apart from about half being lads and lasses that do a similar job to mine, they’re all minor celebs from the ranks of the plastic proletariat.
Some may want to turn on and switch off to the world, hanging on every inane word of people they’ve never met who can’t think what to say without a script writer or pay cheque. But I prefer to turn off and switch on.

I actually had a very brief conversation with someone about this only this morning. He refuses to use a computer because, as far as he can see, they have destroyed conversation and communication (we did have a brief mention of typing as a means of communication, but he was rather entrenched in the view that typing isn't writing, and therefore isn't the same thing).

I'd say don't blame the smartphone, blame the television. As soon as we started to look to other people to create our entertainment rather than get out there and create it ourselves, we lost something special. We expect to be given things to watch and care about, and pow! there goes imagination and thought.

Sorry, I might be very, very tired this morning and not that eloquent.