Technology Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart

Dear Bloggie Sue,

Why is is that in our age of technological connectivity

we are more isolated as individuals than ever before?

Signed,

Sitting Alone in my Apartment Watching Porn I Ordered

through my digical (sic) cable box

Dear Sitting Alone,

First of all, you don't actually have to type "signed" on a

letter, that's just what people say when they read a letter

aloud. Secondly, man is by his very nature a social creature.

Yet we crave freedom and independence as much as we

crave that connection to other people. When the loner sits

at home watching his favorite TV show, he gets the same

social buzz as hanging out with people who can actually

see him. The cast of "Friends" felt like real friends to many

people who cared about their characters. It was a placebo

affect created by the intimacy of television. This technology

is not far removed from our Internet experience in which we

can "meet" people online, We aren't actually meeting anyone.

In some ways, we aren't really even communicating. We could

be talking to a computer in some instances and not know the

difference.

Personally, I think our economy pushes up toward "independent"

living. One family per household maximizes the amount of crap

we have to buy. If we lived in a house with extended family, which

was much closer to the norm prior to WWII, then several families

could actually share a fridge and a stove, maybe a car. But

somewhere along the line, we were all convinced that we should

want to live alone rather than with the annoyances of the human

tribe. I don't think this is our natural state.

Human beings are full of neuroses and dichotomies. We want to

be alone even when we are lonely because being alone in a crowd

makes us feel even lonelier. We prefer the company of technology

because we can pick it up and put it down as soon as we're done

with it.

I don't think we really use technology to connect with people so

much as we use it to maintain the house of cards which is our

isolation. And it's only going to get worse.