My take on this after living with television since the mid-fifties is that we have replaced our personal reality with what amounts to believing that movies sets are reality itself. We see people on TV sitting at desks but forget the famous Johnny Carson skit where he stumbles and lands on his famous desk only to have it shatter a collapse. This skit parodied the artificial environment that convinced millions of people that Johnny sat behind a real desk. He was sitting behind a mock up of a desk!

Today we see how a mock up Oval Office sits across the street from the real Oval Office so that it provides a real auditory and environmental authenticity where the President can deliver his speeches.

This is replacing reality. It's become pervasive and part of our daily experience. We do this at our peril because it becomes too easy to misrepresent everything we see and believe.

My personal antidote to this is to just go out and be among real people, most especially my neighbors I sit (uncomfortably) wherever I need to sit, on concrete or on real wood benches without padding or contour. I smell real flowers planted by a real neighbor and just talk about our personal history or our personal present circumstance. We ask each other what we should do about this or that. We report our progress on meeting personal challenges.

But back inside I go online where there are "social platforms" where there is no direct contact with anyone, including the infamous "fact checkers." The local town council meetings are real social platforms. This is where we can affect real matters of significance to us all. We are not disoriented by a false reality.