The Zombie Generation

I’m a big fan of zombie fiction. I’ve seen more zombie movies than I can count, read some novels, played video games and interactive fiction games in the genre, and on at least a few occasions I’ve asked myself the question: “What would I do if the zombie apocalypse happened right now?”

But until now, I don’t think I really viscerally understood what the real zombie apocalypse that is unfolding all around us was like.

You see, the zombies are already here.

You see them passing you on the street, as they awkwardly dodge lamp posts and trash cans while staring at their phones. You see them almost, or actually, run over people as they send out a text or look at their feed while driving.

You see them on public transport, in Cafes and restaurants, in stores, and of course, in homes.

People are sleepwalking through their lives, wasting the best years of their youth in front of screens that literally rot their brains - just like zombies!

The brain rot is only slightly noticeable with Millennials, whose formative years were largely pre-smartphone and social media, but for the next generation?

Oh man, they’re screwed.

I have quite a lot of nieces and nephews, and phones are like crack cocaine to them. They no longer know how to exist without them, and their phones are perpetually more interesting to them than anything else they’re doing.

More interesting than that new city they just went on vacation to. I’ll point out cool landmarks as I look around and they look up confused from their phone-induced zombie state, almost annoyed that I would dare wake them from the slumber to see something out the window.

More interesting than the person talking to them sitting across the table. My toddler will walk up to one of these zombified relatives and start talking to them and they’ll have no idea. My wife or I will have to call them out on it and say “Hey, she’s talking to you” for them to snap out of it. 2 minutes later their head is buried back in there.

Phones are the first thing that greet them in the morning, and it’s the glow in the dark they go to sleep to.

The result? Not only are they spending half their waking time staring at a screen, but their cognitive abilities have taken a serious hit. I have nieces and nephews who are teenagers and they are incapable of forming thoughts or having a conversation. Not just with adults, but even amongst themselves.

Occasionally we run into a homeschooled kid who isn’t addicted to their phone and they sound like an intelligent adult, with thoughts of their own, and enough of them to hold a good conversation; but it’s rare these days.

I feel bad for my kids when they grow up - they’re going to struggle to find friends and partners among the ever-decreasing pool of functioning adults in this country.

When George Romero pioneered the modern Zombie movie genre, he largely intended the idea of a zombie to be a criticism of society. But this is truer now than it ever was during his generation.

And, just like his fictional zombies, the modern zombified people are trying to spread that addiction to everyone else. We can no longer trust some relatives to babysit our kids because, despite our requests to the contrary, the first thing they do when they’re alone with them is hand them a phone or plop them in front of the latest news segment about stabbings in the city. To a toddler! It’s like they have to metaphorically eat their brains to satisfy their own need to spread the addiction.

Honestly, I’m not sure what the path forward out of this nightmare is. With technology becoming ever more widespread and addictive, I have a feeling the last few conscious people in this world are going to be living in bubbles and enclaves while the masses sleep-walk into an early grave of sickness and tyranny.

Conservatives worry about the erosion of the 1st and 2nd amendments in this country, but let’s face it folks: between the obesity, phone-addiction, and brain rot; we have bigger problems. It doesn’t matter if Americans are armed and have the right to free speech, if they’re too sick and distracted to do anything with these rights.

We’re heading towards some kind of nightmarish combination of Dawn of the Dead and Wall-E. How do we reverse course? Can we?