Corrupt Consumption Society
Surfing the web, checking social media, binge watching Netflix, things we all love to do. The internet has provided us with the ability to consume an astonishing amount of data with minimal effort. We have immediate access to any information we would want to see, or that others would want us to see. While this is a wonderful tool for us to have, it has major drawbacks. The amount of information we are consuming as opposed to what we are creating is an issue that seems to go relatively unnoticed. If a population was to consume more resources than it could produce it would have disastrous effects, but that’s exactly what we are doing with data. But with data the results aren’t as immediately obvious as with resources such as food. This issue is one that holds a great deal of importance in my life.
It was a few years ago during a typical night of randomly clicking my way through links on google that I stumbled across an article that changed my life, but I wasn’t aware of the effects it would have at the time. The article described in great detail the amount of data we consume on an average day through our various means of communication with the world, and compared it to what we give back. We are taking in information when we check social media, when we watch movies, when we text, even when we have a conversation or listen to a lecture. And this consumption isn’t bad by any means, where things go wrong is that most people aren’t generating anything new to return to the world. And what we are generating are simple 160-word expressions that dilute the overall level of useful data in the world, just in hopes that someone else will “like our status” to confirm our contribution.
I’m not saying that we need to stop consuming, or that we need to dedicate the entirety of our days to content creation, but it is something we need to work on. If we only created ten percent of the data we interact with every day, that would be an amazing accomplishment. When we create as opposed to consume, we discover a new level of self-expression, and we begin to rediscover our own ideas and perceptions of the world. Creation frees us from the constraints that consumption applies to our minds. When we spend so much time absorbing the ideas of others, we begin to accept their ideas as our own, and lose our ability to generate personal concepts. When the way we view the world is through the gorilla glass lens of our phone, a part of our own identity begins to fade.
Part of the problem is that it is much easier to consume than it is to create. People tend to think that even if they did create it wouldn’t make a difference and wouldn’t be appreciated. But that isn’t always the point, you aren’t going to become a filmmaker or be the next Warhol overnight. Creating isn’t just to achieve notoriety, it’s to express who we are and to achieve the most important feedback, that which comes from within ourselves.
My biggest goal in life is to encourage both myself, and those around me, to create something every day. I try to influence others to write a few paragraphs under their Instagram picture today, post something on social media that is more than what they are eating for dinner. And eventually I hope it leads to them doing something more. If we could all start our own blog, or online photography portfolio, or even an art gallery, the world would be a better place. So instead of looking up the next big thing, we should create it.
