It's 25 Years Later. Are We All Now Trapped in 'The Matrix'?

It was March 24, 1999 that The Matrix premiered, premembers the Wall Street Journal. 'To rewatch The Matrix is to be reminded of how primitive our technology was just 25 years ago. We see computers with bulky screens, cellphones with keypads and a once-ubiquitous feature of our society known as 'pay phones,' central to the plot of the film.'

But the article's headline warns that '25 Years Later, We're All Trapped in 'The Matrix''.

[I]n a strange way, the film has become more relevant today than it was in 1999. With the rise of the smartphone and social media, genuine human interaction has dropped precipitously. Today many people, like Cypher, would rather spend their time in the imaginary realms offered by technology than engage in a genuine relationship with other human beings.

In the film, one of the representatives of the AI, the villainous Agent Smith, played by Hugo Weaving, tells Morpheus that the false reality of the Matrix is set in 1999 because that year was 'the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization, because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization.' Indeed, not long after 'The Matrix' premiered, humanity hooked itself up to a matrix of its own. There is no denying that our lives have become better in many ways thanks to the internet and smartphones. But the epidemic of loneliness and depression that has swept society reveals that many of us are now walled off from one another in vats of our own making...
For today's dwellers in the digital cave, the path back into the light doesn't involve taking a pill, as in 'The Matrix,' or being rescued by a philosopher. We ourselves have the power to resist the extremes of the digital world, even as we remain linked to it. You can find hints of an unplugged 'Zion' in the Sabbath tables of observant Jews, where electronic devices are forbidden, and in university seminars where laptops are banned so that students can engage with a text and each other.

Twenty-five years ago, 'The Matrix' offered us a modern twist on Plato's cave. Today we are once again asking what it will take to find our way out of the lonely darkness, into the brilliance of other human souls in the real world.

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