DOES DIGITIZATION ESTRANGE US FROM OURSELVES?

I just returned from the SPA International Congress in Freiburg and am sitting in the quiet compartment of the ICE train. The lady across from me is wearing stylish earplugs, watching a movie on her tablet, simultaneously playing on her incredibly large smartphone and her smartwatch. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" suddenly screams from her smartphone. I startle. "YOU MUST REALIZE...." A parliamentary debate? Now? Here? So loudly? I am on the verge of hyperventilating. The traveler calmly continues tapping on her 2.5 screens. In combination with noise-control in-ears, digitization obviously appears more annoying to her than the thickest board in front of her head. She doesn't get it. Nothing. "Digitization alienates us from ourselves," I heard a speaker say last night at the SPA Award ceremony. "And then people come to our SPAs to find themselves again." I try to think about this sentence, but I can't manage it. "What was my mission again?" Constant WhatsApp signal beeping next to me. Behind me, a young man is playing music so loudly that I can hear it. A few meters away, an Italian traveler politely stands by the door to not disturb anyone while on the phone. Well-intentioned, but he speaks so loudly that he might as well have stayed seated right next to me, as a living antidote to the signal beeping. People are spinning like crazy in the digital world - and then they go to the SPA to find their center? Isn't that crazy!? It is crazy. But maybe that's only half the truth. Many of us struggle for success, for attention, for recognition - that has probably always been the case. What is new is our pursuit of clicks and likes in social media. With this, digitization has shortened our time horizon to a permanent "Now!", "Here!", "Immediately!". That's why long-cherished goals and desires, as well as long-nurtured friendships, are increasingly slipping from our view, and one day we stand in front of the mirror and ask ourselves: "What was my mission again? Unfortunately, I forgot!" "When the smartphone is off, the longing comes" We live in a time that makes it easy for us to lose contact with familiar people and deep-seated needs. The blame is not solely on "digitization". The blame lies on our susceptibility, our desire for quick thrills and clicks. Our enormous susceptibility and the allure of social media fit together quite well. The strenuous work on ourselves has little urgency for us - after all, no one even notices if we leave it aside. So we distract ourselves with trivialities and forget the essentials. Ourselves. Who are we, really, when we turn off the smartphone? And can we handle the long-ignored longings that then resurface? "Truly, we are only ourselves with others" I am on my way to Gozo. There, I will visit a friend I haven't seen in far too long. We will talk for hours again. We will sit by the sea and look out at the water. We will watch the clouds. Just us. Because truly, we are ourselves only with others. What do you think?