Day 23
One week of blog posts left for the 30-day challenge,
meaning one week to figure out my website and then its onto Season 2. I have a
bit of time this weekend; I’ll get myself a large coffee and sit with my laptop
until I figure it all out. I’m also excited for Season 2 as I already know some
of the posts will be whilst on tour in the US, making for some epic stories
that I’ll be telling first hand.
Running down the river this morning; my mind was all over
the place. As I got about 3 miles into the steady 9 I did this morning, I
suddenly realised how out of the moment my head felt. I just reigned it all
back in right there on the river bank. Brought myself back to the present,
stopping myself from over-thinking the future and worrying about the past week.
In the words of The Story So Far, I quite literally “let it go”. It felt good.
The trouble with modern day living is it’s easy to not exist in the present. I
work around young people, I see them every day existing in this virtual world
that lives inside their pocket. Some of them are so far removed from the real-life
present moment that they forget it’s even there and it genuinely makes me sad.
One of the reasons I prefer to teach in SEND is that about 80% the learners don’t
even have a phone, a social media awareness or even knowledge that the internet
exists. It means they are never anywhere but in the moment. I have nothing but
admiration for that, even if it isn’t necessarily their choice.
The kids with phone’s however, can’t help but look at them all the time –
finding it hard to go any more than about 10 minutes on average without a quick
glance. They don’t even know why they’re looking at it. Damn, most of the time
whenever I look at social media I’m not really sure why I’m looking at it. There’s
this insistent need to have a quick scroll through Instagram, to check Snapchat
and some of us older lot are even still feeling the need to put up a Facebook status
(for some reason).
(I wrote a song about it: Ghouls – Internet Famous)
They want to deal with it in schools and colleges as it’s an
increasing problem; I would argue that it’s actually a problem across life
itself rather than just education. To treat the issue we would need to start
way before kids are anywhere near an educational facility, we’d need to start
within the technology itself before it even reaches any people. Hopefully, Elon
Musk and his crew work out a merry-medium by which technology only enhances the
real life present moment, keeps us more engaged in non-virtual activity and
gets us outside keeping us from going inside. Take that concept over to
education and you might have devices that make kids want to get more engaged in
what’s going on in their lesson, rather than the meaningless (but sometime
hilarious) meme pages of Instagram.
Something I find really helpful for me personally when it
comes to the virtual world, is keeping a manual diary and notepad. I have it
with me at all times. It’s something that I started doing when I went on a
cold-turkey break from social media last year. Where I’d typically scroll on my
phone, I fill the gaps by instead doodling or writing random notes. I don’t know
why but it feels a lot more productive and if not a bit therapeutic – more so
than any social media scroll. I also find that I can remain very much within
the moment when I’m manually writing something or doodling away.
(A learner left a can of Monster energy drink in the class room and it had ‘Dia de los Muertos’ graphics all over it. I drew it because I thought it looked cool.)
So, what do you think will happen next for social media and
that lovely rectangular mass that we’re all so addicted to? Will they figure
out a happy medium? Will the virtual moment and real-life present somehow combine?
I don’t know… Maybe everyone will just start blogging.
Catch ya tomorrow. Happy Friday y’all.
BG.
benedict. 