THE evolution of a world condemns its occupants to choosing between fading away alongside an unsustainable past or surviving in a strange and unfamiliar future. This is a choice that is placed on the table in front of every generation that experiences unprecedented changes in its lifetime. For the generations that live in today’s world, the ‘unfamiliar’ future consists of a digital window that provides us with access to a whole new dimension of connection. Every day, this dimension grows larger and more realistic so that we can no longer tell where the real world ends and where the digital world begins. We cannot tell a real voice from a digital one, nor a real face from an artificial one.

Yet, as confusing as this development is, failing to understand how to navigate it is the same as cutting ourselves off from a significant portion of the outside world. By choosing to denounce it without understanding it, we are effectively choosing to remain tied to the past. Perhaps this is why the younger generations have become so proficient in navigating the digital world — they are simply refusing to let the new world leave them behind. As such, Gen Z has grown into a generation characterised by its ability to navigate the seemingly strange and dangerous digital world with ease.

Despite this fact, we seem to find ourselves trapped time and again in a rather strange phenomenon. We seem to get caught up in the phenomenon of parasocial relationships.

We seem to be able to differentiate between a real video and one created by artificial intelligence quite easily. We seem to be quite comfortable with the culture of being extraordinarily frank in the digital space, even if our opinions can be seen as offensive. However, when it comes to seeing past the digital world and into the real world, we are entirely unable to do so! We often find it difficult to understand that even the real faces and voices we see on our screens can be quite different in real life. We cannot fathom that the personalities and the lifestyles we see are sometimes not any more real than the screens we see them on.

Not only does this mean that we often celebrate people who may, in fact, be quite cruel or indifferent in real life, but it also means that we often persecute and attack people over mistakes that may not be real, or may have no great importance in the real world. There have been many instances where extremely well-known and celebrated individuals have been revealed to be the face behind horrible deeds. On the other hand, there have been many instances where we have looked back at history and realised just how cruelly we have treated some celebrities for seemingly no apparent reason.

Both of these occurrences stem from the fact that we begin to place unrealistic expectations on these individuals with the assumption that, because we consume so much of their content, we know them well enough to understand their lives or their choices — that we are capable of judging their actions.

Our attachment of such intense emotion to the figures in the digital world has consistently proven to be unhealthy. Regardless of this fact, we constantly repeat the same mistakes that have destroyed the careers of passionate artists or allowed guilty persons to hide from their crimes. As a generation, we have become so accustomed to navigating the online world and seeing it as part of the real world that we have forgotten a key fact — we have forgotten that following an influencer or being a fan of a celebrity is not the same as being friends with someone or loving someone.

It is okay to appreciate someone for their skill in music, speaking, or acting. It is okay to follow someone’s fashion advice or cooking recipes. However, we must be mindful of the extent of the connection that we have with the celebrities and influencers that we might admire. We must remember that there is an unbreakable screen between these individuals and the viewers that prevent them from seeing us, and, most importantly, us from seeing them truly and wholly.