Ever get the feeling that the robots are coming, that you’re being softened up for their shiny jackboots? Don’t believe for one minute that Android is an operating system, it’s much more than that. Let’s face it, we’re already slaves to the machine.
If our smartphones, laptops, TVs, social networks or iWhatevers broke down tomorrow, we’d be ruined, our flabbers would be royally gasted and we would demand the machines take us over again. We would want the tanks to roll over us.
The addiction to digital and technology seems to accelerate each day. I can’t watch a game of football on TV (previously my greatest stress-buster) without fiddling with my phone. Man, I miss goals because I’m f*?king around with Twitter and Facebook. Sinful.
Moreover, if I’m away from my wife and child, I sleep (not have sex with) my laptop. I watch films/shows on it before I nod off and when I wake up I check ALL important websites and networks before I have my first cup of green tea.
Yes, green tea… because after 35 years of drinking tea and coffee every single day, I have given up caffeine. What an utter nightmare. I could take all my digital devices (effectively my career) and throw them into the depths of Ground Zero rather than this week’s withdrawal.
Raging headaches, limbs aching as if I’d spent 48 waking hours in a hotel with an hormonal Beyoncé and utter lethargy, it was like withdrawing from other things that MY FRIEND may or may not have consumed in my, er, his addled existence.
But now I feel better and I also seemed to have lost a bit from the filthy, obscene, disgusting belly that recently crept over my belt (I have always been a svelte, slender and handsome man). So, caffeine really is bad for you if this is the reaction to not drinking it.
Similarly, there must be a similar reaction to over-indulging in digital devices, so this experience of the caffeine-shakes is going to lead to better digital manners. I will READ before I go to bed and wake up, I will set limits as to when I plunge my head into a screen and I will watch football and nothing else.
Ergo, when the robots come and find humans with grey faces with gibberish for a language, I will fight back with my non-digital freedom and feed the Android bastards tea and coffee and their revolution will be over. Long live stupid humans!
Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.
