I've invented a word: pixel-weary

When the words world and weary were first combined in the 1750s to describe those disillusioned with life through over-exposure or over-familiarity, pixels were 200 years off invention. News and information travelled only as fast as people, which was slow, uncomfortable and at great expense. To be overexposed to everything life had to offer was not only difficult but, in many respects, a privilege - one only afforded to those with enough money to introduce themselves to new experiences and enough luck to not drop dead before their 40th birthday.

But today, the way we experience the world is so fundamentally different it is borderline unfathomable. We are capable through advances in media and technology to be shown world events so accurately, with their effects so visceral, it is akin to being present at them ourselves. And with the Orwellian prevalence of cameras now filming every single major world event and minor local happenstance, we are frequently exposed to sublime images of what we once considered rare and exceptional. And in addition to this over-exposure and demystification, AI is now capable generating completely fictional content that we cannot differentiate from the real thing. We are beginning to feel the effects of observing events that never even happened.

I have personally found all this to result in one dominating and lasting emotion—weariness. We know social media is proven to impact mental health and attention span. ‘Brain-rot’ is a new internet term which refers to this cognitive decline and fatigue, but this does not accurately explain the long-term and longer lasting emotional and mood-altering effects caused by an over-exposure to all types of content, including that of traditional media; long-form TV and film is as capable of generating the same feelings of over-familiarity and numbness. When was the last time you saw anything genuinely new or shocking on the news, in a documentary or in the cinema?

Pixel-weariness and world-weariness generate the same feelings of general disillusionment, melancholy and cynicism, only we should appreciate world-weariness to be generally achieved through authentic lived experiences - which at least have some enriching qualities, while pixel-weariness is achieved through the passive consumption of primarily artless media that has little to no enriching benefits at all.