Arts
Living in such a connected world is damaging our ability to think creatively, says Brian Solis, a world-leading anthropologist and futurist, on the latest episode of the Innovators podcast by the Current Global. By being constantly online, we are constantly distracted, he suggests. He refers to this particularly applying to "Generation C", where the C stands for "Connected. "We all live in a similar lifestyle. And when you live that lifestyle, you're rewiring your brain. You're speeding it up; you're moving faster, you're becoming less patient, you're becoming incredibly narcissistic. The world literally revolves around you," he explains. "You have followers, your friends, you feel like you need to constantly feed that system, but you're also feeding off the system. So you might find yourself endlessly scrolling for no good reason whatsoever." Solis experienced this himself: after writing seven best-selling books, he struggled with distraction while trying to write this eighth. Getting caught up in cycles of sharing and consuming social media is one of the main reasons why people get less and less creative over time, he suggests. "The real problem is that I'm placing greater emphasis on what happens on this screen than I am in this moment right now. That means that I'm not placing value in the people that I'm around, or the places that I'm at, which means that becomes forgettable." But his quest to understand society's digital realities, behaviors and expectations did indeed end up inspiring a new book after all. In Lifescale, he reflects on how we ended up opening ourselves up to so many distractions and what changed to make people value this way of living – points that he also touches on in the podcast. In this conversation, recorded with the Current Global's Liz Bacelar at our Innovation Mansion at SXSW this year, Solis explains his techniques to taking control over tech, shares how brands can be more authentic by being more empathic; and reveals what the key is to transforming us into the leaders of the future.