A checklist before you digitally enrage

Digital is all the rage. It's handy and quick. Anything that used to require actual physical presence or on the spot gauging of emotions now can do without it. Unfortunately, what an overdose of digital really ends up meaning is disconnect, as opposed what it's supposed to mean which staying connected all the time. Suddenly, we don't need to be experts or hold well-considered opinions. We can just Google them. We don't have to check up on people. We can just find out about them from a profile. We don't have to seek the actual company of those who are our tribe. We just tag strangers by what they think and say, and box them so we can either bash them for their view or join them with it. We don't need to truly engage anymore.

While the picture may seem grim, it really isn't. In this digitally disempowered age, we also show our cracks when our erstwhile connected, human traits shine through. This can't be anymore obvious than our immediate rage at "how could they" things. A video, image, or news article forward of a child getting rapped, someone getting hacked to death in full view, or something equally horrendous shows us to the limits of human atrocity and subconsciously remind us of how horribly inhuman these acts are. Our response may look like an improvement from our digitized humanity but it is usually shortlived. We go right back to our technological comfort to display how we feel about it. And, that too, in a classic manner. Rage.

WhatsApp forwards and statuses, Instagram posts and stories, Facebook threads and stories, Twitter stories, tweets & threads... we spare none. While at that, we also spare no restraint with the sense that's due to the issue. It's the deep human connect that enrages us and the technology that empowers us but the disconnect that between the two that fails us. 

What happened? Where? When? How? Is it true? How do we know? Is the source credible enough? Are we even enraging in the right direction? Can we speak in a way that can be of some good more than just being rage? These are the questions we need to ask. Technology makes it feel like our voice counts more and it is measured by stats including impressions, likes and shares that don't imply any of these checks. We seem to think that it's guilty till proven innocent, just do we can indulge our digital outrage. 

But, there is some hope in the fact that we're enraged and that hope is lost with how we enrage. Yet, we don't choose to be group spectators to inhumanity like how it ends up happening in a lot of mass society. This shows how deep it runs, with still some hope left in the fact that we have the hope of still remaining human enough to still be human in a digital world.

 It also borders on the imperfection of humans. We are meant to be a learning, evolving people. While we never really kept the standard high, we can never be perfect either. The best perfection will the one we achieve but this digital rage isn't near worthy. 

Digital does not mean disconnect from everything that we have fully inbuilt and capable analog senses to do. Digital should just be the interface of perfectly human interaction.