Lonely in an Electronic Wilderness: "The Great Emotional Sickness of Our Era"

[rrneck]

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/136300/lonely_in_an_electronic_wilderness%3A_%22the_great_emotional_sickness_of_our_era%22/?page=1

“Technology allows us to separate ourselves from reality – moving people away from the real to the imagined, from the emotional to the controlled,” observes Derek V. Smith in an email interview with me.

The author of A Survival Guide in the Information Age sees a darker side to the proliferation of personal gadgets and the use of technology in daily life. “Escaping into technology, someone can create false worlds, identities and experiences.”

snip

A 2006 study published in the American Sociological Review found that Americans had on average only two close friends, as opposed three, two decades ago. One in four Americans said they had no one to confide in, compared to one in ten in 1985, while the number of people who depend solely on their spouse went from five to nine percent.

We have sold off large chunks of our cultural and emotional real estate to corporate interests who add nothing to the human experience. The makers of electronic communications devices seek only to be the conduit for our relationships without enriching them in any meaningful way.

This, on an internet forum. Oh, the irony.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. Simulated experience.

Thru movies, TV, internet.

Read Baudrillard and the concept of the "Simulacrum" (simulated experience).

I think he hit it on the head.

[rrneck]

2. I don't see it so much

as a simulacrum as a diversion of resources.

Imagine seeing a friend on the street and before you can have a conversation with her, you have to put a few cents in a meter. Or at a bus stop even a casual hello would require you to view a bit of advertising first.

The information that gets transferred between people is the same. The feelings are the same. We get intelligent discourse, obscenity, flame wars, gossip, encouragement and reality checks. Sometimes we even get actual information. The scam is that we are having to pay to talk to each other.

It ain't all bad. There is just too much of it. We are sub contracting our humanity to others in a million different ways until before long we won't even be able to recognize each other as human. Maybe that process has already started.

[cobalt1999]

3. Simple. Turn off the computer and talk to real people.

nt

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

4. I met lots of good real people thanks to the computer.

Hello, Chicago! Hello, Milwaukee! :hi:

[rrneck]

5. Well, yeah.

Of course, that's like saying, "Simple, turn off the TV, stop smoking, overeating, driving, attending movies..." When you are having your morning cup of coffee, there is an army of MBA's out there trying to figure out how to squeeze another nickel out of you. There is a multi billion dollar a year industry backed by a mountain of research whose sole purpose is to make you over indulge in stuff that is not good for you but makes them money.

Your point is well taken, but it's not that simple.

If you don't get an immediate reply I'm not ignoring you. I have to go to work. :)

[cobalt1999]

12. Yes, there are people selling us all these toys & stuff.

Many of which aren't good for us.

However, if 25% of Americans have no one to confide in, that's a large human need going unfulfilled. The solution isn't as hard as eating less/exercise more. It's about taking a little time to engage in the world going by us. It's a great world and more fun than anything they can sell us.

Well, until the Star Trek Holodeck arrives...then I'm checking out. :)

[Spike89]

6. Seriously flawed conclusion

There may indeed be a tightening of the circle of friends effect, but I'm not at all convinced a case has been made for gadgets having anything to do with it. Maybe communications devices are even counterbalancing the effects of television, movies, web pages, etc. (which may be the culprits). The indictment of the producers of communications devices is almost comical--did the postal service ever strive to be anything more than a conduit? Western Union? ma Bell? Courier pidgeons?

It's easier, faster, and less expensive to maintain family and friendship relationships over distance and time than ever before. I have siblings in Eastern Canada, Alaska, and Oregon and I'm able to keep in touch, and in a richer way (voice, photo, video) now than I could have dared dream a couple decades ago. I can communicate quite well without having to schedule with asynchronous methods, enjoy long distance essentially free (especailly compared to the old AT&T monopoly days), and even reconnect with "lost" friends that prior to the communications explosion would have been lost forever.

[Lex]

14. I agree with this.

nt

[rrneck]

21. Sounds like you're using the

technology right.

I don't want to sound like a Luddite (especially while typing this response on a laptop in a smarmy coffee shop), it just seems that the means of easy communication has far outstripped our ability to use it. There was a day when a bit of paper and a stamp would create a document that would become a family heirloom. Now, it is so easy to express ourselves that the very efficiency of our utterances have rendered them cheap and disposable. And it seems that that excess has happened not as a result of some unfocused explosion of technology, but as the result of the marketing at the service of profit.

Surely some moderation is called for here. We all enjoy conversations with people we've never met exchanging ideas we may never have dreamed of and the ease with which we can maintain relationships with far flung friends and family. But surely there is some way to facilitate these wonders without sacrificing reflection and subtility? We seem to have gone from well thought out documents that could be read and reread like literature to 140 character bursts of nonsense no better than so many grunts and farts. Even in this forum, where I have communicated with a lot of facinating people who are a lot smarter than me, we still need to use emoticons to compensate for actual face to face communication.

We seem to have too willingly sacrificed quality for quantity in our personal relationships. Oh, wait...I just got a poke from Facebook...

[Spike89]

28. Funny! But I guess I just don't see it that way

I'm sure there is some truth in the "communicating so much nothing get communicated" meme, but I view these messages (and most e-mails) as conversational, i.e. ephemeral. The family heirloom letters-style communication still occurs, but I don't believe it was ever as common as hindsight would lead us to believe.

My 20-year-old stepdaughter is a true digital age communicator--she texts, e-mails, and blogs as like young people used to gab on the phone, or chat in the malt shop, or horse around in the buggy whip factory. However, she also uses her gadgets to collect photos and sounds and compiles elaborate multimedia DVDs for her friends special events--these have all the artistic thought, emotion, and humanity of the old hand-penned letters. My son is a video journalist...although almost a decade older than his stepsister, he treats communication media pretty much the same. There is chatter and there is talking. One isn't very deep, the other always has been and always will be about the connections between two or more people. The medium isn't important.

All that said, I do appreciate that many people older than my kids may be overusing the chatting aspects and aren't savvy enough to be able to use the technology fully to express themselves. This will pass as us older folk either get it or pass on. I just don't see anything inherently dehumanizing in the technology.

[slay]

30. As with most things, moderation is key

IMO :hi: <-- look - cool emoticon to express my waving at you! hehe

[slay]

29. Agreed - there is no way to prove that electronics are the cause

I feel more in touch with people now than a few years ago when I didn't use the internet to stay in touch with people. I'd say much more to blame is people working more hours for less pay!

[spooky3]

32. I agree with that.

[spooky3]

31. wish I could recommend your post. Good points.

[Terry in Austin]

7. Techno-isolation started with cars and air-conditioning

Those were the first two biggies, IMO. Then it accelerated with technologies that could to some extent simulate involvement.

-- your friendly neighborhood simulacrum

[cobalt1999]

16. Bingo.

Both had a biggest impact on the landscape and personal habits of people. Computers & other tech toys are just incremental changes compared to the Cars and home A/C's.

[lunatica]

8. There's a lot to be said for people who use the gadgets

to inform themselves. It used to be and still is for many people that they were dependent on what the TV and radio chose to tell or report on. Now the gadgets make it possible to access information by actively looking for it and it also allows for active engagement. And people still have time to talk to family and friends. This is hogwash. The worst that gadgets are doing is changing the way people communicate. And what's wrong with that.

[rrneck]

23. This thread is a good example

of what you are talking about. I'll never get through all the suggested reading I've seen in this forum.

But what about Facebook, MySpace, and (ugh) Twitter? Speed of and ease of communication seem to be increasing while actual comprehension and relationships are becoming attenuated.

There was a time when a stamp would transmit several pages of text, and that was it. Now I can't turn on my cell phone without watching a Verizon ad. The "word to ad ratio" seems to be skewing heavily in favor of the vendor that supplies the conduit for communication. How long before each word in every text we send will have a link to a product? (Brought to you by Carls Jr.)

[lunatica]

26. Not everyone is connected up to the eyebrows, nor do they want to be

But I do wonder about thinking and introspective time. When I see how very young people seem to constantly have a cellphone at their ear or texting I just wonder when they ever get to be just with themselves, in their own heads.

[Echo In Light]

9. Corporate Consumer culture conditions toward isolation, which = less organized opposition to Power

[rrneck]

22. If you control the

means of communication, you can control the message. Wasn't there a big fight about net neutrality or something recently?

[cali]

10. EM Forster saw all this coming down the pike a hundred years ago

read the plot of "The Machine Stops" here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops

Forster was, by leaps and bounds, the most prescient writer, I've ever encountered.

[Echo In Light]

11. Herbert Marcuse outlined it in One-Dimensional Man, 1964

http://igw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/marcuse/

[cali]

13. never read it. now I will

but Forster did wrote The Machine Stops in 1909. That's what makes it so remarkable to me. Plus, that wasn't the only notable example of his being able to see over the horizon. He did it repeatedly, in essays, novels and in the bit of scifi he penned.

[Echo In Light]

18. Click on Archive to find complete One-Dimensional Man

[Joe Fields]

15. anyone who can't see that this has taken place is blind.

[omega minimo]

17. interesting thread. all good points. it is upon each and all of us to remain human while interacting

"It ain't all bad. There is just too much of it. We are sub contracting our humanity to others in a million different ways until before long we won't even be able to recognize each other as human. Maybe that process has already started." OP in another post.

[NeedleCast]

19. I can only speak for myself,

but technology and gadgets that allow for rapid communication/networking has probably increased the amount of time I spend in face to face social situations because it make organizing things among a number of people easier and faster.

[MindPilot]

20. How much has the past decade factored into this?

Bushbot politics or fundie nuttery have destroyed several of my friendships. And the past eight years have made me very selective in whom I confide.

I think that is probably more of a factor than the gagets.

[krabigirl]

25. bingo

[krabigirl]

24. meh. I love technology, as well as imaginary worlds. I'm a freak, and I like it.

[EFerrari]

27. Imho, that's just wrong. Plenty of people make more friends because of the net.

The writer seems to have a problem imagining how people connect. That's usually called "projection".