By Destine Nde
So what does the medieval figure of Don Quixote and today’s youngsters glued to their electronic devices have in common? In my view, quite a bit.
The years 1605 and 1615 saw the publication – in two parts – of the The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, which is widely regarded as a founding work of Western literature and the first modern novel.
It’s the story of a Spanish nobleman, Hildago Alonso Quixano, who spends almost all his wealth and time on buying and reading books about chivalry, and the adventures of the most famous knights. A fantastic notion then came into his mind, namely to become a Knight-errant himself and set out into the world on horseback, in search of adventure and opportunities to change wrong into right.
He then chose a name more befitting a knight, Don Quixote de la Mancha, employed a peasant named Sancho Panza as his squire, took (though only in his mind) the beautiful Dulcinea del Toboso as his lady, knighted himself by swearing the Knight’s oath to defend the weak and administer justice, and began to wander around the world.
Poor Alonso had been driven mad by books on chivalry, and fell into the folly of wanting to appear in their pages. Indeed, he went on to brave and fantastical adventures, even mistaking windmills for giants (thus the widely known phrase ‘tilting at windmills’). After Don Quixote and Sancho Panza return home to their village of La Mancha, Spain, Don Quixote falls ill, renounces chivalry and foolish fiction, and dies.
A similar obsession is seizing the modern world today. Having read the phenomenal success stories of billionaires like Steve Job (Apple), Bill Gates and Paul Allen (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Chad Hurley (YouTube), Kevin Systrom (Instagram), Zhang Yiming (TikTok), Jan Koum (Whatsapp), Evan Spiegel (Snapchat), and so on, millions of people around the world are not only aspiring to replicate their success, but are also making unrealistic and misguided sacrifices to turn this into reality.
The rise of this modern Don Quixotism can be traced through the generations: the Millennials were born during the digital era, from 1981 to 1996. their generation was tech-savvvy and diverse. Then came Generation Z, who grewup with smartphones and social media, from 1997 to 2012. Some of the most successful and famous social media apps — like Facebook, YouTube, and Whatsapp – were were created in this period.
More recently, engagement with social media and the digital universe has been hugely accelerated by the emergence of AI. Generation Alpha (2013-2024), has been characterised by the emergence of AI and cutting-edge technologies. Generation Beta, from 2025 and projected to last until 2039, is expected to advance this even further.
Gradually and often imperceptibly, the world has become irretrievably immersed in social media and digital technology. Indeed, one could argue that the world is now an e-world, in which social media and technology are shaping every aspect of human life, including work, business, education, religion, politics, entertainment and socialisation.
The opportunities now available on social media are almost limitless, and AI has made them even more realisable than ever before. In the past, tech lovers had to study hard and practise for years in order to create a new app or invent a new opportunity on social media. Now, AI can do all of this in a matter of minutes.
This is why all kinds of new apps are constantly emerging, new websites are popping up on a daily basis, and hugely diverse content is uploaded every second; webinars, podcasts, sermons, courses, video clips, interviews, posts, and more.
Increasingly, the power of social media is being leveraged for commercial purposes. Affiliate marketing allows anyone anywhere in the world to advertise and sell other people’s products, and one can teach online courses to just about anyone from just about anywhere.
One can advertise and sell one’s own products, preach a sermon or persuade people to donate to a worthy cause – and earn a lot of money via ‘pay per click’ advertising, whereby you are paid more and more for allowing ads to run on your website or social media account depending on how many people visit them.
These are just a few examples of the many ways in which social media are ensnaring and swallowing up the world, turning more and more people into Don Quixotes. There is even a fancy new term for the scramble for opportunities on social media, namely FOMO: the Fear Of Missing Out.
Click on Tiktok, for example, and you will see millions of clips of all sorts, from comedy to inspiration, education to politics, sports to arts and entertainment. School children are among its most prolific producers. Like Don Quixote, they want to become famous by attracting more and more likes and followers. The same is the case with YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.
Content is created by a huge range of people, ranging from presidents and other political leaders through academics, religious leaders, business tycoons, and many more.
In my town Willowmore, for example, there is hardly a teenage girl who doesn’t have a TikTok or Facebook account: they al think they are the funniest, the best dancers, the best singers, the wittiest, the wisest, the smartest, and so forth.
The most striking — and indeed appalling – similarity between these youths and Don Quixote is that they cannot accept that their ambitions are fantastical. – that they are wasting their real lives and real potential on chasing imagined futures that will probably never come to pass.
Like Don Quixote, this is a true blend of reality and fantasy: social media and its innumerable opportunities are real, but the dreams of most of its adherents are fantastical. They too have been driven mad by the success stories of tech innovators. There were real Knights-errant in cerain times, but very few.
Likewise, there will always be a handful of tech geniuses who become famous and make a lot of money. The tragedy is that the vast majority of youngsters chasing those ideals today are tilting at windmills. Let’s just hope that, like Don Quixote, they also see the folly of their ways, and return to leading more realistic and balanced lives.
FEATURED IMAGE: Youngeters in Willomore – including some members of the author’s household — glued to their digital devices.