17-07-2025
UAE: Can digital detox be the new norm with Gen-Z?
The digital detox is coming, and I know it both anecdotally and personally.
Personally, it sucks. Social media, staring at a screen for most of my work and entertainment, or dealing with some AI nonsense. Whatever it may be, the time is coming where the wide use of cell phones and digital networks overall will decline.
Maybe it's that large language models and so-called AI are already messing with peoples' heads by delivering them delusions of grandeur and false information that perpetuates all sorts of stereotypes, prejudices, racism and inhumane thinking, but I struggle to believe this globalised society, less than 200 years after the industrial revolution, has at all contended with what all this tech is doing to humanity.
From our collective well-being to our individual health, it seems as if though we never moved on from the economic boom-seeking culture of the 1980s, we did our utmost to hold up the enthusiasm for ever-more complex gadgets and systems. On the surface, and in many early cases, these advancements were good; cell phones and personal computers freed us of work, the internet showed us we could build a truly global society, and advancements in AI offered a glimpse at a post-work, post-scarcity society.
Unfettered by race, religion, culture and even our own bodies, what was to stop us?
The Gutenberg press was a similar revolution; a wine press, some stamps, some ink and paper – and Europe and Christianity were changed forever. Are we as flawed for believing our species and society could remain the same after so many advancements in such a short period of time, or is it new, 21st century hubris for believing we were better than our ancestors? We fight the same wars, commit the same genocides, and rob the same people of liberty and opportunity when it's someone else's turn at the top of the geopolitical wheel?
I don't know the solution, just that it needs to start with pulling back. Healthy use of all technology is not at all on peoples' radars, and I accept that, I'm no Luddite. But as a species we have to contend with living in a world where billionaires can ride rockets like space cowboys, while children are starved to death in Gaza.
When I think about it, I shut off. Outside of work, I'm cursing myself if I go on social media, I'm annoyed if I open a streaming service, and I'm uncomfortable when I have to write another form email to ask the same query of a person weathering 1,001 questions from people just like me.
Now, I don't subscribe to the theories which proclaim anxiety, depression and suicide are on the rise only because of social media – I'm convinced this is a case of correlation not equalling causation and gathering data on mental health is just easier as the stigma declines – but we do know for certain that how false information spreads and can be manipulated or suppressed by those in the control seat.
I am still looking, but we all must find a way to split the difference between those community 'it takes a village'-type ties, and broader solidarity around the world that travels by respecting other cultures while not giving ground where it matters most.
