Whatever happened to living in the moment?
It seems that in this age of social media and viral content, we’ve all become obsessed with hits and likes and retweets – to the detriment of actually savouring the present. An experience or emotion isn’t worth having if it’s not documented in pixellated form.
On Tuesday night, Manchester City were awarded a penalty on the half hour mark of their vital Champions League quarter-final game with Paris Saint-Germain.
Of course they eventually overcame their French foes, but at that point in the game, everything was still to play for and it was pivotal moment in the two-legged tie.
As Sergio Aguero prepared to take the spot-kick – which he ended up fluffing – you could imagine how tense the City fans were in the stadium. No doubt their nervous eyes would be fixed on the action, not daring to blink for fear of missing this potentially game-changing moment.
Breaking: Aguero miss blamed on mystifying change in social behaviour. pic.twitter.com/xUYSfPlICN
— Jonathan Overend (@jsoverend) April 12, 2016
Except that wasn’t quite the case for a group of youngsters sat behind the goal. Instead of watching the penalty via the HD three-dimensional medium of their actual eyes, they held up their mobile phones en masse to witness the set piece via a 5-inch rectangle.
No doubt they were recording the moment to stick on YouTube or Facebook, or taking an ‘I was there’ snap for posterity, but there’s something incredibly sad about wide eyes and pained faces giving way to a wall of plastic and metal rectangles.
