Perfectly Imperfect

When the smartphone was created, it was considered to be revolutionary. Now, it has become more of a revolutionary burden that has overtaken every single corner of our lives.

Innovations of technology are assumed to be correlated with productivity, and in many ways, that assumption is correct. Humans can now communicate with other humans within seconds over text messages, instead of days by the postal service. We can quickly type our schedules and to-do lists without writing them on paper. At the moment breaking news happens, we can receive an alert on our phone.

In other words, everything is close to perfect. Humans will never be robots, so technology allows us to keep up with everything as quickly as possible.

But at the same time in which our lives have improved closer to an ideal of perfected productivity, technology has never ceased to showcase the reality of human imperfection. We have become increasingly dependent on new technologies to aid us in our imperfection, and in doing so, we reveal our true selves.

Take for example, an Instagram photo. I have found myself guilty of taking multiple pictures to find the perfect pose to post onto my profile, and I am confident that close to 100% of other Instagram users like myself would say the same thing. We take the photo, find the right angle, and use a good filter to create the ideal post. 

A perfect post. One which is a lame attempt to hide our imperfections.

In Stolen Focus, Johann Hari writes about the development of empathy in a human individual through the reading of fiction novels. Reading about hypothetical people and their situations allows us to become more understanding of other people and how they think. With the speed in which users scroll through the social media posts of real people, however, empathy does not develop to the same extent. Hari writes that “if you see the world through fragments, your empathy often doesn’t kick in” (Hari 89).

Social media posts are fragments of the appearance of perfection. If we are unempathetic as human beings to the appearance of perfection, how much more will we be so when encountering the real imperfections of others?

Perhaps one reason why humanity is so unhappy is because we have become less empathetic as people. It does not take long to find a negative comment, or a fight in a comment section. There is a noticeable increase in social media “warriors” using hateful words they would probably never use in the real world.

What if we accepted the truth of human imperfection, instead of covering up for our insecurities? We would become happier and more content people who are attentive to the world and its complex situations.

We cannot hide imperfection with the appearance of perfection. We must come to the realization that we are perfectly imperfect, and the perfections of technology cannot alter that reality.