I had to write an essay about the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet for my English exam in high school. I remember titling it "connected". My main point was how Internet and social media keeps us connected, with family, with friends, and with the whole world . As you can learn about anything and everything, you can talk to people who have the same interests as you. You can make lots of friends. Those were the advantages I listed 5 years ago.

I think that we are too dependent on the Internet nowadays. We are quite frankly addicted to it. I think that as I look at people around me staring at their smart devices. Family members, friends, or strangers passing me by in their cars with one eye on the road and the other on their phones. I am not excluding myself of this behaviour, don't get me wrong, I am guilty as everyone else. We have become addicted on following our favourite celebrities, addicted on watching our favourite series, addicted on media consumption, from the moment we wake up till the moment we have to fall asleep.

We reached a point where we can't sit in silence anymore. Something must be on at all times. Whether it's Netflix or YouTube. A show you are not interested in but keep playing cause other wise it gets dead silent. And we are afraid of the silence, we are afraid to sit and be alone with our thoughts. Because thoughts wanders, and who knows what you will think of when you are all alone with nothing to do. So we consume media instead, to quiet the voice inside. To keep it numb and not wander around, it might wander into dark and dangerous places.

Today in particular, something happened that made me think of all of the above. At the barber I was sitting on the chair to get a haircut. For the first time ever, I thought instead of sitting here staring at myself in the mirror, I should play something on Netflix. Something, anything really. Though, it should be something that I'm not too interested in. Since I can't entirely focus on it. Anything to get me engaged, but not too engaged. I played the first episode of a show I liked, a show that I watched and rewatched multiple times more than I care to count, enough to remember everything about it. I played my episode and was watching it half heartedly.

10 minutes in watching the show I was thinking too myself "am I too addicted on having something to distract me that I can't even sit for half an hour through getting a haircut without my device and tv shows" I kept thinking "am I too dependent on my device, on my distractions, that I need something to play just as whitenoise, I didn't care what was on really, just as long as something was on" I started feeling ridiculous with my device on the counter playing a sitcom, and I felt bad. " I should respect the place I'm in, and the people in it with me, to sit quietly without disturbing them, as much as they didn't disturb me" I thought, then reached to my phone and shut it down.

Few minutes later a customer walked in, sat on his chair, got his phone out of his pocket and started playing music at first, pretty loudly too. Then short videos that were funny, I assumed cause he kept laughing. Those short videos you keep getting on social media, a minute long or less, the ones where you plan to watch one and end up spending hours watching hundreds of them. He was playing everything loudly, which irritated me.

"Excuse me brother, could you lower the volume on what you are." I asked nicely

"Oh was that bothering you?" He asked, and then continued "sure let me lower the volume real quick"

"How's that?" He asked after lowering the volume to a reasonable level

"Yes, that's fine" I replied.

He was very nice about it, answered me politely and took no offence in my request. He kept on playing those videos, then 5 minutes or so later, he too shut his phone off.

I thought he might have felt the same way I did, when I was playing something where I shouldn't. Or maybe he didn't feel anything at all, and was just bored of those videos and decided to turn his phone off. But the situation made me think that I'm not the only one who's addicted to media consumption, there are a lot of people like me. I thought of my essay from all those years back, and a single thought crossed my mind "we are no longer connected, we are plugged in..."