We increasingly attempt to control our surroundings and the world of nature, possibly because of the insecurities we feel in a frightening environment. The internet is probably the prime example of something we have created and have become dependent upon, but is completely beyond the control of anyone. The technology we create to control the environment produces the opposite. What anorexics can do is exert control over what they eat, giving themselves the illusion that they are in control of their lives. The technological world we inhabit is accelerating at an extraordinary pace, with more information on more subjects than ever before.
Consequently expectations are also higher.
Maybe it is all too much to 'digest'. In an increasingly affluent world dominated by instant communications, constant air travel and unreal expectations fostered by the world of advertising we are moving further and further away from our roots, from the earth that nurtures us. It is not only the children of the poor in the inner cities who are being deprived of that contact with the land to which they belong. Affluent children are flown to exotic beaches where they experience little if anything of the soil or the culture of the country they are passing through. The only indigenous people with whom they come into contact with are those who serve them.