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  • I have four hundred and twenty-two friends

  • yet I'm lonely.

  • I speak to all of them every day, yet

  • none of them really know me.

  • LOOK UP

  • The problem I have sits in the spaces between

  • looking into their eyes or at a name on a screen.

  • I took a step back and opened my eyes

  • I looked around and realised

  • that this media we call social is anything but.

  • When we open our computers

  • and it's our doors we shut.

  • All this technology we have is just an illusion.

  • Community, companionship, a sense of inclusion

  • yet when you step away from this device of delusion,

  • you awaken to see a world of confusion.

  • A world where we're slaves to technology we mastered

  • where information gets sold by some rich greedy bastard.

  • A world of self-interest, self-image, self-promotion

  • where we all share best bits but leave out the emotion.

  • We're uttermost happy within experience we share

  • but is it the same if no one is there?

  • Be there for your friends and they'll be there, too.

  • But no one will be if a group message will do.

  • We edit and exaggerate, crave adulation

  • We pretend not to notice the social isolation.

  • We put words into order until our lives are glistening.

  • We don't even know if anyone is listening.

  • Being alone isn't a problem, let me just emphasize

  • if you read a book, paint a picture or do some exercise,

  • you're being productive and present,

  • not reserved and recluse.

  • You're being awake and attentive

  • and putting your time to good use.

  • So when you're in public and you start to feel alone,

  • put your hands behind your head, step away from the phone.

  • You don't need to stare at your menu, wipe your contact list.

  • just talk to one another. Learn to coexist.

  • I can't stand to hear the silence of a busy commuter train

  • where no one wants to talk for the fear of looking insane.

  • We're becoming unsocial,

  • we're no longer satisfied to engage with one another

  • and looking into someone's eyes.

  • We're surrounded by children, who since they were born,

  • have watched us living like robots and think it is norm.

  • It's not very likely you make world's greatest dad

  • if you can't entertain a child without using an iPad.

  • When I was a child I'd never be home.

  • Be out with my friends on our bikes

  • I had holes in my trainers and graze up my knees

  • building our club house up in the trees.

  • Now the park's so quiet it gives me a chill.

  • See no children outside and the swings hanging still.

  • There is no skipping, no hop-scotch, no church and no steeple.

  • We're generation of idiots:

  • Smartphones and dumb people.

  • So look up from your phone, shut down display.

  • Take in your surroundings, make the most of today.

  • Just one real connection - - it's all it can take

  • to show you the difference that being there can make.

  • Be there in the moment that she gives you the look

  • that you remember forever as when love overtook.

  • Time she first hold your hand, or first kiss your lips,

  • the time you first disagree but still love her to bits.

  • The time you don't have to tell hundreds of what you've just done,

  • because you want to share this moment with just this one.

  • The time you sell your computer so you can buy a ring

  • for the girl of your dreams who's now the real thing.

  • The time you want to start a family and the moment when

  • you first hold your little girl and get to fall in love again.

  • The time she keeps you up at night and all you want is rest

  • and the time you wipe away the tears as your baby flees the nest.

  • The time your baby girl returns with a boy for you to hold

  • and the time he calls you grand-dad and makes you feel real old.

  • The time you're taking all you've made just by giving life attention

  • and how you're glad you didn't waste it

  • by looking down to some invention.

  • The time you hold your wife's hand,

  • sit down beside her bed,

  • You tell her that you love her, lay a kiss upon her head.

  • She then whispers to you quietly as her heart gives a final beat

  • that she is lucky she got stopped by that lost boy in the street.

  • But none of these times ever happened.

  • You never had any of this.

  • When you're too busy looking down,

  • you don't see the chances you miss.

  • So look up from your phone, shut down those displays.

  • We have a finite existence, a set number of days.

  • Don't waste your life getting caught in the net

  • as when the end comes, nothing's worse than regret.

  • I'm guilty too of being part of this machine,

  • This digital world we're heard but not seen,

  • where we type as we talk and we read as we chat,

  • where we spend hours together without making eye contact.

  • Just don't give in to the life where you follow the hype.

  • Give people your love.

  • Don't give them your like.

  • Disconnect from the need to be heard and defined.

  • Go out into the world and leave distractions behind.

  • Look up from your phone, shut down that display.

  • Stop watching this video and live life the real way.

I have four hundred and twenty-two friends

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