Sad world of the future

We are laying the groundwork for a sad world as opposed to a brave, new world. Here is how I visualise that world: We will walk down the road oblivious to everything around us, not noting the few trees that are left because we will be living in a dust bowl that resulted from not taking global warming seriously.

While walking, we will not even notice people anymore because an electronic device will permanently be fixed to our heads.

It will be difficult to see a neurologist because these doctors will be swamped with patients who have neurological disorders and brain tumours, a result of being hooked up to electronic devices all the time.

We will become silent, suspicious people reluctant to speak to anyone because the slightest disagreement will trigger someone to shoot us.

No one will speak about skyrocketing crime because it will be a norm by then. We will become resigned to senseless murders in the same way that people in wartorn areas of the world live with terrorism.

There will be a whole new mindset because optimism will be replaced by cynicism. Expectations will be low. Everyone will be apathetic and empathy will no longer exist.

We will be callous, uncaring individuals still entrenched in instant gratification because the electronic devices that are the centre of our lives have become more sophisticated and more capable of turning us into zombies with gnarled fingers that are a result from pushing buttons non-stop.

Our eyes are larger — saucer-like — because of the amount of time we watch computer screens (actually saw a picture of this on the Internet), and our ears are starting to look like those of the late, great Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy because we truly are becoming aliens now — aliens of ourselves.

Hyperactivity will reach new levels because our brains are overloaded circuits bombarded with information. We never experience solitude. In the future, we won’t be able to settle to watch a television show. We will simply flip from channel to channel in a restless state of inability to process information.

No amount of burglarproofing will keep people out of our homes or even out of our bank accounts because the feeling of entitlement that everyone feels today will have reached a whole new level 50 years from now.

People will hack our bank accounts and credit cards, steal our cars by remote control and come into our houses to take whatever they want to take. Well, they do a lot of that now, but it will be the norm 50 years from now.

Most people won’t even realise when it’s happening because they’ll be hooked up to some device.

Few people will be reading books because children will be exposed to technology far too early.

There will be fewer professionals in the future because less people will want to devote years to education in this instant gratification environment. The number one problem for elderly people will be dementia. Because people gave up using their memory and no memorisation skills were being taught in schools, people rapidly lost their memories. Elderly people in the future will not have the luxury of nostalgia because they will have no memory left.

If this isn’t the world we want, then we had better examine how we are living today and combat this push-button culture of instant gratification.

O t h e r - wise, we will be d o ome d to the dystopian world that we create.