Canatuan, John Aeron A.

STEM-12-D

In the concluded Tagisan ng Sining Director’s Cut 2019, STI College Calamba
bested other nine campuses as they bagged the most coveted national championship
title with Russel Ernest Lapuz, Josea Maciel Delgado, and Kavine Toni Goh as their
production team. The defending champion’s masterpiece, Tech Delusion, drew not only
positive insights on my inner Generation Z self, but also existential self-realizations that
amended my perception on modern technology— it is making the world smaller, not
bigger as the majority of people tend to think.

Upon watching the four-minute film, I was impressed on how the production team
portrayed the delusion of modern technology and left the audience various perceptions.
As the film started with the characters wearing paper bag on their heads, a mask
maybe, while browsing social media platforms for almost two minutes, I firstly thought of
suffocation, specifically social media suffocation. We, especially Millennials and
Generation Z, tend to do what we see in social media, because it is predominantly the
trend. We do not notice that we are strangled by a chain, locked up on a cage, and
controlled as if we are on a puppet show.

In addition to that, I also thought of how humans subconsciously hide on a

different or anonymous mask when we enter the online world. We see pictures perfect
and we are like ‘I want to be this and that’ resulting to clowning ourselves, on what is the
real thing. Our attitude differs evidently when we are on social media such as we can be
the talkative one on social media, however, in real life, some cannot just deal with a lot
of people and rather be silent. The issue of seeking validation on others and gaining
satisfaction also comes with this, not knowing that showing our authentic unfiltered
selves online is already a must, so is valid.

As the video continually showed the people wearing the paper bags on their
heads, together with my first two views regarding that, it led me to my final and I think
my key thought which is: technology, mainly social media, is not only making people
self-centered but also forgetting to focus on real people in real life. Social media is a
platform wherein people around the world can be together but ended up doing the
opposite. I believe that social media connects us with people that are far, however,
disconnects us with people who are near to us. We spend too much time isolating
ourselves and disconnecting from the real world to maintain the perception of being
connected, which in my opinion, is certainly wrong. As Harris (2013) said, “technology
was supposed to connect us but we are more disconnected than ever.”

With that, I strongly believe that in today’s era wherein innovation has been
playing a vital role towards the enhancement of 21st century, we cannot deny the fact
that modern technology, especially social media, is something that we cannot avoid to
utilize in our everyday lives, and there is no doubt with that. Obviously, technology is the
best discovery that has been existing up to this date, for me, at very least. However, it
is clearly not our fault to live in the present generation: the major problem here is that
how we use the inventions around us negatively. Naive as it may seems, but I must say,
I can attest to that.

This Abakomma film brought me back to my childhood years living an urban life
with no modernized technology at all. From helping the newly anchored fishermen to
entirely anchor their boats on the seaside as they give newly caught fishes to the ones
helping as a consolation, from fetching water from a ‘bomba’ due to unstable water
supply, from blowing through a pipe for the flame not to run out, and from harvesting
fruits such as coconut, atis, and sampalok myself, was that simple urban life with no
modernized technology I am trying to pertain to. Currently, being equipped with modern
technology, alongside with social media, made me neglect the simple tasks
subconsciously. Too much dependence on technology allows us to spend less time on
tasks and exert less effort doing them. It limits our activities, actions, and movements—
and that is not always a good thing.

Going back to the film, it was ended by the girl who took her mask off and
everyone around her bravely followed. I felt empathic simply because that ending also
proved my three thoughts as the girl smiled gorgeously. Firstly, if we ever feel
suffocated on social media, it is not wrong to take a break and putting ourselves first
before others. I believe that there is nothing wrong on detaching from social media
because on the first place, we could live freely without it on our life, just like old times.
Secondly, we could just show our true selves online, not following any norms. Social
media is a great platform and a personal space to show the rest of the world who we
are because who would want to know a pretentious person who just puts a show by
hiding behind a mask?

Additionally, the quote “The technology that should have been used to connect
people drifted us apart and made us disconnected to one another,” that was shown on
the final seconds of the film summed up my main thought. We have access to this world
in ways our ancestors never did. I believe that there are countless advantages to being
‘connected’ but it is the disadvantages that are often overlooked or ignored.
Nevertheless, we must remember that as we connect more to the online world as
technology evolves, our connection to the real world must not and cannot diminish.

I hereby concluded that the production team did show the audience that if people
start to think big, we must start small, as what the girl did in the film. On that case, if we
want to embark change, then the change must start in ourselves. We have to be
different and do different to make a difference.