Opinion Piece: The Personal TechnoBubble
This article may offend some people. If you're sensitive about your technology and your attachment to it, please, I'm not kidding, don't read this. It's only my opinion, and if my opinion is going to upset you, then stay away from it.
As my hearing decreases, one of the things that I find myself missing more and more is the interaction with those around me. With no sight, and less and less sound, my social sphere is gradually closing in on me, and I find this kind of sad.
It strikes me as interesting, then, that as my desire for social interaction increases proportionately to my inability to fill that desire, society is moving away from social interaction, or at least physical social interaction.
I'm not the first person to think this. Back in 1980, Douglas Adams, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was thinking along the same lines when he had the idea of elevators with precognitive abilities that allowed them to be waiting for you when you got to them, "thus eliminating all the tedious chatting, relaxing and making friends that people were previously forced to do whilst waiting for elevators." It didn't quite work out that way. Elevators are no more precognitive now than they were in 1980, at least not according to my practical experiences.
But people's dsires to do away with one-on-one socialization have definitely increased in the intervening 35 years, thus creating what I call the personal technobubble. When's the last time you talked to the person next to you on the bus, the train, or the subway? ARe you one of those screaming bloody murder at the airlines because they insist you turn off your cellphones during a flight? Do you know more about people on social networking whom you've never met than you do about the person living next door?
Smart phones are amazing devices, to be sure. For many people, a smart phone is a music player, a library, a radio, a TV, a map, an arcade, and a community center. The book Ready Player One, which envisions a world where virtual interaction has replaced physical interaction, isn't so far out. If most people don't have such a world, most people want it and would embrace it.
I think my dad would be saddened to see the rise of the personal technobubble. Dad was always one who could walk up to a person and strike up a conversation, just as easily as you please. I was sometimes embarrassed by this ability, but more often than not, I was envious. But in this day and age, when everyone is staring into a screen or plugged into their favorite music, when physical motions are more or less on autopilot, Dad's gift of the gab would be lost, useless, unwanted, resented.
Not long ago, I read a book in which a young lady's smartphone went on the fritz. She spent over a thousand dollars desperately trying to get herself set up again immediately so she wouldn't have to face the awful fate of being on a train without her beloved phone. The thought of actually having to take in, and interact with, her surroundings absolutely terrified her. I think the author meant it to be funny, but these days, it's becoming more and more of a realistic portrayal. With everyone's life wrapped up in one piece of technology, when that piece of technology no longer works, people are lost.
And lastly there's the shift in values. I've heard more than a few people say that economically, the average person is worse off now than during the depression. So I go back to my father, for a depression story or two. Dad told me that, one winter, my grandfather had to wait six months before being able to afford a stamp to mail a letter. I try to compare that to this day and age, when some people's idea of disaster is having to turn their phones off during the course of a two-hour flight. I think that the people comparing present-day hardships with the depression have, on the whole, completely forgotten what hardship means.
Am I opposed to technology? No, I embrace it. What I am opposed to is the way it is taking over the lives of people. Our society worships its technology. What kind of a system has the creator worshiping its own creation? You can say what you want about my beliefs, but I'm glad my God created me, and not vice versa.
As my hearing decreases, one of the things that I find myself missing more and more is the interaction with those around me. With no sight, and less and less sound, my social sphere is gradually closing in on me, and I find this kind of sad.
It strikes me as interesting, then, that as my desire for social interaction increases proportionately to my inability to fill that desire, society is moving away from social interaction, or at least physical social interaction.
I'm not the first person to think this. Back in 1980, Douglas Adams, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was thinking along the same lines when he had the idea of elevators with precognitive abilities that allowed them to be waiting for you when you got to them, "thus eliminating all the tedious chatting, relaxing and making friends that people were previously forced to do whilst waiting for elevators." It didn't quite work out that way. Elevators are no more precognitive now than they were in 1980, at least not according to my practical experiences.
But people's dsires to do away with one-on-one socialization have definitely increased in the intervening 35 years, thus creating what I call the personal technobubble. When's the last time you talked to the person next to you on the bus, the train, or the subway? ARe you one of those screaming bloody murder at the airlines because they insist you turn off your cellphones during a flight? Do you know more about people on social networking whom you've never met than you do about the person living next door?
Smart phones are amazing devices, to be sure. For many people, a smart phone is a music player, a library, a radio, a TV, a map, an arcade, and a community center. The book Ready Player One, which envisions a world where virtual interaction has replaced physical interaction, isn't so far out. If most people don't have such a world, most people want it and would embrace it.
I think my dad would be saddened to see the rise of the personal technobubble. Dad was always one who could walk up to a person and strike up a conversation, just as easily as you please. I was sometimes embarrassed by this ability, but more often than not, I was envious. But in this day and age, when everyone is staring into a screen or plugged into their favorite music, when physical motions are more or less on autopilot, Dad's gift of the gab would be lost, useless, unwanted, resented.
Not long ago, I read a book in which a young lady's smartphone went on the fritz. She spent over a thousand dollars desperately trying to get herself set up again immediately so she wouldn't have to face the awful fate of being on a train without her beloved phone. The thought of actually having to take in, and interact with, her surroundings absolutely terrified her. I think the author meant it to be funny, but these days, it's becoming more and more of a realistic portrayal. With everyone's life wrapped up in one piece of technology, when that piece of technology no longer works, people are lost.
And lastly there's the shift in values. I've heard more than a few people say that economically, the average person is worse off now than during the depression. So I go back to my father, for a depression story or two. Dad told me that, one winter, my grandfather had to wait six months before being able to afford a stamp to mail a letter. I try to compare that to this day and age, when some people's idea of disaster is having to turn their phones off during the course of a two-hour flight. I think that the people comparing present-day hardships with the depression have, on the whole, completely forgotten what hardship means.
Am I opposed to technology? No, I embrace it. What I am opposed to is the way it is taking over the lives of people. Our society worships its technology. What kind of a system has the creator worshiping its own creation? You can say what you want about my beliefs, but I'm glad my God created me, and not vice versa.