On July 1st, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 19,240 British soldiers gave their lives for their country.
To put the number in context, that’s three times more than in every combat operation since the end of World War 2.
Had the Prime Minister read out their names in the House of Commons (as has been done since 2003) it would have taken at least 11 hours.
It was an unfathomable sacrifice, and one we must never forget. Indeed, when I think back to the first quarter of the 20th century, a single word springs to mind: selflessness.
Duty, honour, sacrifice and extraordinary courage defined that generation.
By contrast, as I reflect on the first 25 years of this century, things feel very different. The sentiment that probably best sums up the general attitude is a kind of neurotic selfishness. A narcissistic obsession, an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance, disregard for others, lack of resilience, laziness, entitlement and, very often, an arrogance that is entirely unjustified.
Those shared values and sense of purpose that once seemed to unite us seem distressingly absent. We live in a world where people would rather film someone getting stabbed on their mobile phone than step in and save that person’s life, where even policemen pose for selfies with murder victims.
This callow vanity is reflected in the culture that surrounds us. The BBC used to be renowned worldwide for its high quality comedy and drama; but one of the Corporation’s most celebrated shows last year was The Traitors, a contest in which individuals are rewarded for their treachery and duplicitousness in eliminating their rivals.
Last year’s Love Island cast were all about appearances, writes Sarah Vine
A new, much heralded series started on Wednesday night. ‘Prepare for emotional disembowelment,’ gushed one enthusiastic critic. That could easily be a motto for our time.
There is a sense that as we embark on the second quarter of the 21st century, it’s every man, woman and child for themselves.
We see that played out in all walks of life, from politics to art, business and beyond. The idea of a common purpose, of a set of beliefs and values that define humans as a collective, has given way to the cult of the individual.
It’s now very hard to imagine the nation uniting in sacrifice for a common cause, as they did in the first part of the 20th century. Everything is fragmented, atomised.
It’s all me, me, me. And we have man’s so-called greatest invention to thank: the internet.
Everything about the 21st century has been defined by the dot com revolution. And I for one am not entirely convinced it’s for the best.
Just as Narcissus in the Greek myth was enchanted by his own reflection in water, so we have been mesmerised by our screens. That has been the defining change over the past quarter century: mankind’s final transition from the analogue to the digital, and with it a fundamental, irreversible shift in what it means to be human.
At first, of course, it seemed to open up a whole new world of possibility. But the reality is that a quarter century into this brave new world of ours, so much of what it means to be a digital human seems to boil down to sitting slumped in front of a screen either doomscrolling or looking at pictures of other people living infinitely more glamorous lives than our own.
Or getting scammed, or trolled, or cancelled, or viewing anxiety-inducing content. No wonder rates of depression are at an all-time high.
This so-called progress has not been good for us. Even before the threat of AI reared its creepy head, the transition from homo sapiens to homo digitalis has not been an easy one.
Perhaps the biggest and most unexpected irony of the situation is that as the internet has opened up infinite new digital vistas, in real life our horizons have shrunk to the size of our smartphones.
We now quite genuinely hold the whole world in the palms of our hands – and yet it seems we’ve never been so inward-looking. We have the possibility of connecting with anyone, anywhere in the world – and yet somehow, data shows, we feel more isolated than ever before.
One of the BBC’s most celebrated shows last year was The Traitors, a contest in which individuals are rewarded for their treachery and duplicitousness in eliminating their rivals
Loneliness and chronic anxiety are on the rise among young people aged 16-24. So-called ‘parasocial friendships’ – one-sided, non-reciprocal relationships between a person and someone they don’t know, such as a celebrity – are replacing real-world ones, with psychologically damaging consequences.
According to a recent American study, my children’s generation (Gen Z, known as the first digital ‘natives’, as they have never known a world without the internet) spend around six hours a day on their phones. That’s more than most people spend sleeping. But my generation are not much better: over four hours a day and rising – same with millennials.
A huge chunk of time that used to be spent actually doing stuff in the real world is now dedicated to staring, often mindlessly, at a screen. We are constantly consuming – although not necessarily absorbing – information. It’s the digital equivalent of fast food.
And, like fast food, it may satisfy a craving but it has very little nutritional value, either spiritually, emotionally or intellectually. On the contrary, it leaves us feeling empty, always wanting more. It not only takes hours of our lives away but saps our energy and initiative.
Narcissus pined away and eventually died with longing for his own self – and there is a sense in which that fate is reflected today in countless ways, especially among the young. They now judge themselves and others so much by their appearance, they will do almost anything to conform.
Endless filters to make an ‘Instagram face’, fillers and plastic surgery and Love Island enhancements, the increase in eating disorders and self-harm – these are all symptoms of too much time spent obsessing over one’s appearance, gazing deep into the pool. But it’s not just looks, it’s lifestyle too. The rise and rise of the influencer has now eclipsed all other forms of marketing.
Power and importance are no longer defined by a person’s integrity, intelligence, education or talent but by an ability to attract attention to themselves on screen.
Almost everyone and everything these days is judged by the amount of clicks they can accumulate. Clicks mean money, which makes prancing around on the internet – aka becoming a ‘content creator’ – a viable and canny source of income for some.
Of course, a lot of what’s on social media is perfectly harmless, if rather banal. But there’s also an awful lot that’s not. Humans are naturally attracted to the shocking and the gruesome, and that triggers an inevitable race to the bottom and, most depressingly of all, normalises extreme behaviour.
It explains why politics is dominated more than ever before by populists, and why moderate politicians with responsible and sensible views are on a hiding to nothing; it explains why climate change protesters are so hysterical, why lynch mobs end up attacking hotels full of asylum seekers.
And why dubious characters like Mr Beast, aka James Donaldson, who has a staggering 340million subscribers on YouTube, are driven to performing ever more extreme stunts and challenges to keep clicks coming.
Forget all that stuff about the meek inheriting the Earth: the future belongs to loudmouths, exhibitionists and show-offs.
The triumph of internet pornography is the ultimate expression of this, an uncontrolled explosion of misogyny, violence and filth that debases us all and makes a mockery of all notions of civilised society.
And yet for someone like Bonnie Blue, who has bonked her way to fame via the website OnlyFans, it’s a marvellous opportunity. In another life she would have just been just another not very bright young woman working, as she said herself, ‘9 to 5’.
Instead of which she’s earning over half a million pounds a month filming herself entertaining male undergraduates.
No wonder more and more people are migrating away from ‘normal’ jobs and into this world of supposed infinite opportunity, regardless of how degrading it may be.
Why pursue a life of respectable mediocrity when you can prostrate yourself for the masses; why slog to work on the bus or train every day when you can make a living from the comfort of your own bedroom?
Or, in the case of the Duchess of Sussex, why waste time slogging it out as a working royal when you can entertain your own loyal subjects on Instagram – and get paid for the privilege?
This is why everyone is so keen to work from home these days. Doing a ‘normal’ job where you’re required to turn up at the office and perform a series of tasks feels a bit lame when you’re watching someone like the Tik-Toker Jools Lebron, whose satirical video instructing female viewers how to present themselves as ‘very demure, very mindful’ in the workplace last year catapulted her to stardom and a fortune.
As she herself said, she just made a ‘silly video’ and it ‘changed her life’. Wouldn’t we all like a slice of that? Well yes – except that the chance of it happening are actually small. It’s a bit like making money off crypto currency. Granted, it does happen to some people – although for the rest of us the chances of not losing our shirt are small.
But that’s the great deception of the digital revolution: the belief that it’s a democratising force, that it offers everyone the same opportunities. When the truth is it just puts a different set of people at an advantage, only this time they have even fewer scruples than the men in top hats who reaped the benefits of mechanisation in the 19th century.
At least they adopted a vague veneer of respectability; these new internet barons behave with utter impunity.
Just look at the fuss companies like Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, have made about implementing even the most basic safety protocols. Just look at how X and its owner Elon Musk brazenly seeks to influence democracy; just look at how Tik Tok harvests people’s data and throws up algorithms to make them think and act in a certain way.
All of this stuff is framed as a great liberating revolution; in reality it’s just fooling us into thinking we have control – while manipulating us at every click.
Meanwhile, the things that have true meaning in life – family, friendships, basic human interaction – become more and more alien. Even the word ‘sharing’ doesn’t have the same generous meaning it used to. Nowadays when someone ‘shares’ something with their followers, what they really mean is ‘look at me’. It’s all just attention-seeking.
And the tragic irony is that the more we ‘share’ the more isolated we become.
We now have far less in-person contact with people than ever before, and it’s because of the internet. Why go to the shops when you can order online? Why go to a bar when you can search for a date on an app?
Why actually bother seeing your friends, such as they are, when you can just Snapchat them? Why interact in the office with colleagues when you can talk to them in your pants on Zoom working from home?
No wonder my children’s generation are having less sex than their parents did: they simply don’t get out enough. That was one of the unintended consequences of lockdown – it legitimised this digitally imposed, hermetic lifestyle.
Even families who live together spend far less time in communal activity. That’s why terrestrial TV is dying: no one watches TV together any more, they all stream their individual preferences on their individual devices.
We can be inches away from each other, yet worlds apart.
This Christmas, I re-watched When Harry Met Sally, Rob Reiner’s 1989 rom-com starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. Scripted by Nora Ephron, it’s a brilliant exploration of relationships, of the messiness and complexity of the human condition.
No plastic surgery, no computers, no smartphones, just humans being human. It felt like another world. We will miss it when it’s finally gone.