The Adventures of Stupor Man

By Martin H. Levinson

It all began in the 1950s. Screens, often housed in large, decorous wooden cabinets, sprang up in family living rooms across the nation. The screens had stories inside them, which were broadcast through shows like I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, and The Honeymooners. The country was captivated by what it saw and little by little people began to read less and instead watch television.

As time went on, the internet and social media mushroomed in American culture. People who once read long articles in newspapers and waded through doorstopper books spent their time dopamine scrolling and watching 20-second videos. Critical thinking and a desire to dig down on what was going in the world went the way of the dodo bird. When AI came along what had started 70 years earlier came to fruition with the birth of Stupor Man—and Stupor Woman, Stupor They, and Stupor Whatever—a human being with an attention span less than that of a goldfish who has to navigate through a constantly changing, topsy-turvy, digital world.

Stupor Man gets information sent to him faster than a speeding bullet, has mobile devices more powerful than all the greatest supercomputers through the turn of the 21^st century, and is able to leap over mountains of data with a single click. These advantages have led Stupor Man to go on stupendous adventures such as:

• Cyberbullying people to scare, anger, or shame them and make them feel unsafe.
• Wallowing exquisitely in the profound joy of social isolation through feelings of being disconnected or alone despite being connected digitally on social networking sites.
• Having the super thrill of spreading fake news and misinformation quickly and easily on social media platforms.
• Experiencing the mind-blowing delight of job displacement as AI and automation reduce employment possibilities.
• Enjoying the heady erosion of human skills and human capabilities that come with an increased dependence on AI.

What adventures might the future hold for Stupor Man? That’s hard to say but one thing seems perfectly clear: to find out what’s perfectly clear you’ll have to Google it.