Is Technology Causing Isolation?

It’s depressing to see walk into a pub and not see anyone talk to each other because they are too busy on their phone looking at what their friends far away are up to. Its infuriating when four dudes who aren’t even talking are using up a booth, when they could be at home on their phones. How can they be so close to each other, yet so far away? Actually, this makes me think of something. I remember when I was a junior in college studying social media and society, my professor showed us this brief documentary called Generation Like. The documentary went into the great detail about my generation and the generations younger who are growing up in the most technologically advanced stage, humans could have ever imagined. (I suppose you could say that about any generation, but I digress)

Generation Like examined how the majority of people my age and younger are having their self-esteems both lifted smashed by social media, a growing rampage that I like to call cancer. Girls as young as 13 are exposing themselves on Instagram and Facebook, allowing random kids who don't even know what boobs are validate their self-conscious mind. To take it to an even more extreme, these young girls are exposed by their own mothers and parents in hopes of the opportunity to become a model or YouTube sensation. Well done mom and dad, and to think you're calling millennials the wrong doers of the world for having safe spaces and participation trophies or whatever you rant and rave about. Anyway, I did a bit of reading the past couple months, different books not just one, state school yes, but I can sort of read. Again, I digress. One book called Reclaiming Conversation by Sherry Turkle, Tribe by Sebastian Junger, and currently reading Homo Deus by the great Yural Harari. What these books triggered in my mind is that humans need human connection and technology is starting to replace that. Now we live in a wishy-washy world where we don't know how to function because we are caught in the middle of an evolutionary process.

Side note, anything by Harari is absolutely amazing if you love to sit back, read, and question everything that is fucked with humanity, give Harari a read. This man gives you all the ammunition to do so.

Turkle explains in her book that since humans have such an easy escape from reality with their smartphones they are choosing such. Leading us down a cold icy path into solitary and lonesomeness. She also nails on the head the fact that we lack empathy because we are alone and we have a tough time connecting with each other. Scary place us, "superior", animals are headed. Junger in Tribe discusses how American military veterans or still active duty are ravaged by PTSD. Unlike Vietnam, it’s not being necessarily triggered by what they have seen, but what they cannot obtain when they come home, which would be comradery.  Warriors that are living the life they have become so accustomed to living on the battlefield, learning how to survive, seeing death and going through the heartache of a brother in arms die. However, when their tour is over and their contract is up they must learn how to live life like civilians or reenlist. Which a lot of them find incredibly difficult. No blame there, I find much difficulty in civilian life as well, bores me to tears. So, they often find themselves alone or depressed because they are transitioning from one extreme to another and they do not have people by their side to help. Simply because humans suck and they do not want to help each other or interact with each other. Now we have Harari, and Harari so far has explained how humans have evolved from the Stone Age to modern society while he tries to come up with the future by following patterns of the past and analyzing human behavior. Harari believes that the rapid increase of technology and science is leading us down a path of artificial intelligence and even the possible transformation into cyborgs. Before you laugh and say oh that's totally ridiculous, think about the upgrades on IPhones, how dependent we are becoming on our cellphones and how everyday things like cash money are going to be extinct in maybe 10 years. How rapid technology is advancing where Elon Musk is afraid and cautious, not so peculiar, now is it?

Right, so we are eventually going to morph with technology, but he brings up the point that we are in such a strange place right now because we think like humans, act like humans and know ourselves as humans, as primates. Except we are slowly being introduced into the future and before they put that chip into your arm you have to give up total consciousness and humanism which is where we are now. Glued to our phones not knowing what government officials are actually up too, really dumb animals if you think about it! Ha, love Harari. Anyway, we transitioning into technology and feeling alone because we are no longer ourselves, we are going against our DNA.

So why exactly are we feeling alone because of this tech transition? Here is my take. It is too easy, it’s too easy to check up on your friends through social media. It’s too easy to have a conversation through text. Notice how I don’t even say call, because that’s already long gone. Little do we realize, its months before we even meet up with our close friends and then we get a harsh slap back into reality when we physically meet up with them. So, why do we need physical encounters to realize we need human connection if we want to stop the fall into a deep depression? Turkle, Junger and Harari have a combined answer.

Turkle, through research and study found out that when we do not physically interact with each other we start to lack empathy. This is because we do not see the reactions of people during conversation through text, yes even emojis. Non-verbal communication is just as important as verbal communication because we are introduced into another dimension of a person’s personality. Ever notice when someone is lying and they have a telling sign, thank non-verbal communication aka body language. We engage in deeper connection, which leads us to what Harari and Junger discuss in their books.

Harari discusses the difference between a Neanderthal and Homo Sapien. Being that Sapiens knew how to communicate which lead to our survival against wild animals and helped us defeat the Neanderthals on the battlefield. Modern day humans hold communication dear to us because it’s simply how we evolved. Now that its slowly slipping away from us we feel isolated and depressed. We distance ourselves and feel as though we have no one. We resort to filling our lives with work rather than living our lives. Makes sense why young to middle aged white males are committing the most suicide in western societies. They may have the money, but they are losing to the strangle hold of our society trap. People who struggle, but struggle together get more meaning out of life.

As amazing a tool our phones might be, there is still danger that can come of them. A lot of us do not know how the use of virtual realities or social media can react with our minds. So far from what I’ve noticed with people, it isn’t good.

So, to anyone who this has reached I hope you reevaluate your life and come to the grips that friends are more important than apps, and all the money in the world can’t rid you of depression and anxiety, deep conversation can help though. J