In the modern world, we are increasingly losing our time for contemplation amidst the convenience of information and technology. This situation is weakening our independent thinking, and to overcome it, we need to find true freedom by talking to ourselves in solitude.
The phrase that modern society is entering the information age is now outdated. We already live in an information society, with the internet and networks connecting the world, and media penetrating our daily lives. These technological developments have enriched our lives and made them more convenient, but there are important values behind them that we are missing.
On the first day of class, I watched DMB on my phone on the subway to school. I used my iPod to listen to music while traveling to the lecture hall, and during class, I took out my laptop to read and comment on various articles on Naver and Netflix. After lunch, I would take out my cell phone and text with others to escape reality for a while. After class, I would come home, grab the remote, flip through channels, and watch TV. Thanks to technology, we live a life of convenience that was once unimaginable. We can easily get the information we want whenever and wherever we want, and modern technology provides us with a wide variety of pleasures.
While it’s true that modern technology has enriched our lives, have we lost the time to think for ourselves in return? We have less and less time to think about the society around us, less and less time to reflect on the way we live. We are never bored. On the subway, on the street, or even at home, we’re constantly connected to technology, and that leaves no room for our own thoughts.
The most terrible scourge of modern life is moments of solitude. When we are alone with ourselves, without external stimuli, we are forced to confront our own thoughts. However, being accustomed to the information society, we want to avoid that moment of solitude. Emptiness and anxiety set in, and we reach for our smartphones or turn on the TV to avoid it. This avoidance of solitude eventually leads to a loss of independent thought and a greater reliance on external information.
What’s the problem with having less time to think? It could be the cause of many of our society’s problems. I’d like to illustrate this with an anecdote. In my operating system class, Professor Hong told me a story about a student he taught who solved a difficult semiconductor engineering problem that even Samsung Electronics couldn’t solve. It’s worth noting that it took him much longer to write his thesis than it did to solve the problem. This shows that our generation is good at solving local problems, but we lack the ability to see the big picture and organize them.
This problem is linked to the fact that we are increasingly losing time for reflection amidst the media and information overload. We are constantly consuming new information, but we don’t have time to think about whether it brings us true meaning. Media creates shows and imagination, and we lose our identity in it, becoming mere consumers of information.
When Wilhelm von Humboldt founded his university in Germany, he made “solitude” and “freedom” the basic ethos of the discipline. I believe that solitude and freedom are inextricably linked. When we are not afraid of solitude, but rather confront our thoughts in it, we are truly free. It is in solitude that we dialog with our existential self and develop our own independent thinking. You need to escape from the fictional life and reclaim your existential life in the real world. Just like Neo in The Matrix, when he was faced with the choice between the red pill and the blue pill, we can no longer live our lives relying on the blue pill. It’s time to face reality and choose the red pill to find inner fulfillment.
