For the last few months, I've had an idea streaming in and out of my conscious thought about the Jekyll and Hyde relationship we have with technology. It reminds me of one of the fundamental tenets of physics - energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transferred from one form to another. So it is with technology, as much as it adds to our lives, it must also subtract.
These thoughts hit me at random - like pieces of broken glass trying to congeal and create a window with a view of deeper insight into the human condition. A few weeks ago, all of the seemingly disparate concepts crystallized as the result of one, innocuous event.
I've been finishing the demolition of planter boxes in my back yard and have had a large dumpster in my driveway to dispose of the concrete and dirt. Around 7 PM one Saturday evening, a person drove up in a pickup truck, threw a couch from the truck bed, and sped off, all in plain sight of my neighbor. The act of giving me their trash to load into a dumpster rented for private use is appalling enough. When you add the fact that this individual took the time to write "I fucked you" on the couch, simultaneously acknowledging the heinousness of their act and accepting it as normal, I was left pondering one question: "What has happened to civility?" Have we really devolved so much as a society that we take pride in making other peoples lives more difficult, or making others responsible for problems that are really our own?
That's when it hit me - we have technology to blame. Admittedly, this was a difficult epiphany for me to accept.
After all, I make my career building, supporting and promoting technological advancement and all it can do to improve efficiency, profitability, and make lives easier. When I started to connect the dots of all the points of reference bouncing through my brain, the evidence was overwhelming and condemning. The more technology we create, the more disconnected we become, the easier it becomes to disassociate from humanity, and the less guilt we feel for our actions.
Follow the path with me....
It all started with the proliferation of television and the telephone.
TELEVISIONWe learn social connections from the interactions we have with our family. We model relationships we have in the rest of the world with relationships we have with our family. For centuries, we bonded with family and friends over the dinner table. The evening meal was sacrosanct. An opportunity to share the events of the day, discuss dreams for the future, make big announcements. At some point, we supplanted dinner conversation with sharing a meal in front of the TV. This became so prevalent we even named our meals after the habit: TV Dinners. Instead of discussing our hopes, our dreams, and our lives, we became absorbed in the lives created by others.
Soon, you could find a TV in every home. Those that didn't watch it during dinner, watched it after dinner, together, as a family. You had "family hour" shows. Living rooms were rearranged so that every piece of furniture faced the TV - so everyone could watch it with a clear view - instead of facing each other - so people could converse freely without having to strain to look everyone in the eye.
Then, along came cable television. When we had one channel, one option, we could all sit together and enjoy the same show. With cable, we had so many options, we would fight over which channel to actually watch. Eventually, we tired of even this personal interaction and we bought more than one TV. Instead of learning to negotiate, share, and cooperate, we enhanced our proclivity to be individuals, self-centered, and self-focused. Parents watched their show in their room, children, often relegated to the basement, watched their show. Eventually, everyone had a personal TV, and would take their TV dinner with them to their own room, and interaction occurred only when passing each other in the hallway.
Being social creatures by nature, eventually we desired direct human contact - usually when we could find nothing of interest on TV - and we would gather together at the dinner table again, not to eat, but to play a board game. For years, we competed in Life, Yahtzee, and countless card games...until we created video games, that we could play by ourselves, in front of a TV, alone in a room.
We soon realized that computers are predictable. Once you recognized the pattern, you could defeat any game. So, we created games that required two people and you could compete against an unpredictable human. Once again, we were interacting with a human, albeit indirectly through technology. Eventually, we decided it would be far better to compete with someone in the comfort of their own home, instead of inviting them to your home, and we connected the individual consoles via the
Internet.
The telephoneAh, the telephone. The lifeblood of every human between the ages of 12 and 22. What would we do without the telephone? Actually talk to our neighbors.
The telephone started as the telegraph, which itself really started as mail. As we began to mobilize as a society, we sought ways to stay connected. The further apart we lived, the more we desired contact with distant family and friends. The telegraph was the first to bridge this gap, but it was expensive and not very private. We eventually evolved to the telephone. With everything the telephone provided - instant access to anyone else with a phone, who happened to be at home - it also took away. Instead of walking the 200 feet to our neighbor's house to have a conversation, we called them without leaving our homes.
When no one would answer the phone, we grew frustrated. If we couldn't talk to them directly, we wanted to at least leave a message - what if it was important? Of course, what started as a noble idea - leaving someone an urgent message - devolved very quickly into a way to speak your mind in a one-sided conversation using a medium that did not permit the other person to respond. Answering machines quickly filled with
vitriol laced messages of infidelity, hatred, and tell-offs as much as they held actual important messages. What once was considered a complete loss of composure was now accepted as a releasing, almost cathartic way to end a relationship.
Remember when interrupting someone was considered rude? That disappeared with the introduction of call waiting. Nothing conveys importance, respect, admiration and love to the person on the other line as saying "can you hold, I have another call coming in". This, loosely translated, is really saying "someone else is calling and I think I will probably have a more enjoyable time speaking with them than I am with you".
If answering machines and call waiting weren't enough, we then decided that we needed to reach you wherever you happened to be. Again, the
initial cause was noble: doctor's need a pager so they know if they are needed in surgery. Then drug dealers got them so we could get our fix. Then just telling someone you wanted to call them wasn't enough, we wanted to speak with them immediately. Waiting for them to respond, or call us back, was not sufficient. We want immediate answers. Isn't patience a virtue??
To solve the problem, we created cell phones. Now, we could talk to someone anytime, anywhere - like in a movie theater, or at a play, or in a quiet elevator. We even answer our cell phones while on dates. I liken this to the cashier who answers the phone and helps the customer on the phone while I am standing in front of them. I took the time to actually come down to the store, am standing at your counter about to actually BUY something, and you consider it more important to talk to someone who is CONSIDERING a purchase? That's usually when I just walk away and buy it somewhere else.
Cell phones, like television before it, obviated the need to actually share. Why would we now that we can have our very own phone number to go along with our personal phone? We can personalize everything. Which leads me to the mother of all personalization....
THE INTERNETThe
Internet allowed us to work from home using email and instant messaging, open a bank account online, pay our bills online, order food and clothing shipped to our home, and interact with anonymous people anywhere in the world, and never have to leave our chairs, or even our beds once we created laptops and wireless connections. The end result? We are fatter, sicker, more self-absorbed, and less connected to the human race than ever before.
We personalize everything, and then hide behind avatars and fake identities so we can post comments on blogs, and message boards that we would never say if our real names were attached to them. The
Internet has connected us like no other technology ever has, and how do we use it? To
encourage suicide.
The more tools we create to connect the human race, the less connected we are. We send extremely personal emails to people 3,000 miles away and don't even know the names of our neighbors. We post anonymously to blogs, interact in chat rooms, but not once attend a public meeting to better our communities - or even vote! We fire off emails to the colleague who sits in the office next to us, or, in the extreme cases I have seen, use instant messaging to communicate to the person SITTING NEXT TO US!
What can we do? Not accept it. Join me in the following five initiatives:
1) Enforce a "no technology" rule during dinner - no TV, no cell phones, no home phones
2) If you are on a date with someone who answers/uses their cell phone, excuse yourself to the restroom, and just leave.
3) Turn off your cell phone on the weekends, unless you are making a call
4) Pick one work day a week and don't send any emails. Have every conversation over the phone or in person
5) Learn the names and occupation of every person who shares a wall or a property line with you
We need to reconnect with humans, and not through a technical interface. The relationships we have, the lives we touch - that is the resume of our lives. What does yours say?
