Digital sabbath is needed for self-discovery

Technology's rise threatens self-discovery, pushing man into hyper-individualism and digital distraction.

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Standing in the eye of the storm of technology, man today faces at every moment the interplay between his self and technology. Interestingly, the interplay opens up a paradox: the more man feels connected to the world around through mass media and social media, the more he finds himself marooned from his inner true self. The craze for novelty and FOMO have incapacitated him from discovering his own self. Yuval Noah Harari warns: "Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness."

The big-bang arrival of technology in the communication world promised man the jam tomorrow of his self-growth through connection to the outer world, but from the inner world, he was proportionately cut off, in actuality. Though technology facilitates the discovery of novelty, it poses a serious threat to self-discovery, the guarantor of self-actualisation.

Self-discovery is a deeply personal journey that involves introspection, exploration, and a confrontation with one's values, beliefs and desires. Traditionally, this process is fostered through experiences that encourage critical thinking and self-reflection: travel, reading, personal relationships, and even solitude.

Technology, particularly social media, has peddled a mentality riveted on self-branding and personal visibility - called hyper-individualism. The unbitted rise of the 'influencer' culture where one's idealised version (one's digital doppelgänger) is displayed widens the gap between one's digital persona and true self.

The spying algorithms understand our impulses better than we do, exploiting them to make us linger. Like the sirens of ancient myths, apps beckon us with the staccato of seductive notifications. Addiction to screen breaks out because of frustration and boredom: the two mental states characterised by a low level of dopamine - a hormone released in abundance in a state of mindfulness and happiness. Digital sabbath is the only remedy to shake off the screen addiction.

The real hazard posed by technology to self-discovery is the scarcity of moments allowing metacognition. We are afraid of willingly sitting alone and talking to ourselves. Wasif Ali Wasif says: "He whose loneliness is solitude is beautiful."

Screen pop-ups put us on fast-and-furious mode. Consequently, we undergo cognitive exhaustion. A general haste is ubiquitous. We speak fast, listen fast (speed listening), watch fast (fast forward), and even think fast; we are infected with hurry-sickness defined as a harrying sense of time urgency.

'Nature Communications', in its 2019 study, reports an acceleration at a social and cultural level. Hasty and restive scrolling of social media pages causes attention deficit order (ADD), which stultifies our efforts to laser-focus on any physical or cerebral activity legato.

Human spiritual faculties are depleted by continuous under-nourishment of soul caused by our too much focus on digital persona varnished with likes and follows on social media. Mainstream and social media waste human time and energy needed to metacognitively raise questions and ferret out answers - the prerequisites for self-discovery.

The myth of Narcissus reflects the dangers of self-obsession and external validation. With social media platforms overpopulated with likes, follows and shares, it is invitingly easier to lasso validation from others rather than from within. To avoid the fate of Narcissus, it is crucial to build self-worth through self-discovery rather than social media metrics.

In the absence of concerted efforts for self-discovery, the inner world remains untilled. In time, this world is inhabitated with wild selfishness, making man over-ambitious like a Marlowian villain governed by inordinate desires and over-weening ambitions. The blind pursuit of one's self-aggrandisement on digital fora is outright a Faustian bargain between today's man and the digital lure.

Yuval Noah Harari questions the nomenclature of human species as homo sapiens, which means 'the wise human': "If humans are so wise, why are we doing so many self-destructive things? Why are we on the verge of committing ecological and technological suicide?" Definitely, we are on the self-destructive mode in this age of technology.