"There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still."
- FDR
I've been doing a lot of critical thinking about commercials lately. It's funny how ridiculous they become if you stop to think about the premise they're presenting – whether it's gifting unexpected Lexuxes (Lexi?) to a family member, eight-year-olds demanding their parents buy a "cool" car, or relying on the Internet to fix all your problems.
I've paid special attention to two new ad campaigns from Microsoft: one advertising the ways the internet "cloud" improves our lives, families, pictures, and experiences, the other preaching the need for a "phone to save us from our phones."
Here's a commercial from the latter campaign.
The premise, which is unfortunately quite close to the truth: we live in a world where people are so attached to their technology that they seldom look up to interact with their environment. We're so distracted by our music, texts, news, or tweets that we wreck our bicycles, run into things, spill our coffee, and generally miss out on our surroundings.
And here's the ridiculous peddle from Microsoft: what you need to make it better is another, newer, faster phone. You'll free yourself from technology by purchasing more technology.
When you stop to think about it, it's absurd, isn't it? Of course buying a new phone isn't going to help you get off your phone. But we're so busy trying to move forward that we buy it -- we buy the premise, and we buy the phone. And maybe at first it does help, but in the longrun, it just leads to being even more attached to our phones. After all, we just need to keep moving forward, right?
It's a common way to deal with our problems, especially in America, and especially today. There's an idea that progress and technology will save us from ourselves -- that we just need to keep moving forward. Gas getting too expensive? Or running out? That's okay, by the time that happens, we'll have some other technology to fix things.
Now, there's nothing wrong with technology, smartphones, or progress, in and of themselves. I'm simply suggesting that sometimes we need to stand still to really assess where we are and where we're going -- and if we do, we might discover that sometimes the best way to go forward is by going back.
So here's the challenge: stand still. Think critically. Discover the premise behind what you're being sold. Get off your phone and enjoy your surroundings -- not by buying another, newer phone, but by simply taking time to appreciate what's around you. Take out your headphones. Talk to a stranger.
On another note, I think I'm going to try to do a brief series on commercials and the truths they're trying to present. I hope to blog about this again soon.
"If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
