I’m not feeling very Geekly this week, to be truthful. I’m writing this week’s column at the College of Charleston library — which is particularly tough because all the lady folk are distracting me. But it’s also inspired me to think about that: distraction, and not just in the female sense. Something like half the students in here are sporting iPod headphones. Outside on the stoop, about half of those folks are blabbing on cellphones. From past experience, I know it’s tough to stroll up and start a conversation with anybody who’s got a hi-tech gimmick next to, or crammed into, her ear.
The question bothering me is this: does technology bring us together or does it further distance us from each other?
Books, movies, television, music, and the internet are distractions from the world directly around us, the analog world — or “meatspace,” for you dedicated cyber-junkies. And technology like cellphones and iPods and Blackberrys simply repackage and remount these entertaining mediums. The list of distractions is larger and flashier today than it has ever been. Tomorrow will be even more distracting than today.
The truth is, people often use technology to filter and hinder interaction. Judging from their profiles, the 110 million people on MySpace are all perfect, and as far as you know everyone on the other end of your phone is devoting their full attention to you (instead of playing internet poker and really listening with half an ear).
First there was voicemail, then text messaging. Now you can use your new Helio phone to leave a MySpace message for someone, and receive an SMS when you get a reply on your own page. Sure, it’s easier today to contact somebody than it was five years ago. You can call or text or e-mail or comment or IM or “wink” or friggin smoke-signal. But the definition of contact has become ever looser in that time, because it’s also easier to never actually see a living, breathing human and verbally communicate with him. Personally, I don’t think it’s healthy, this so-called progression of technology, allowing us to be in loose communication with each other and all the while growing further and further apart as our one-on-one communication skills wither away.
With every “advance” and new service, we’re fed more and more advertisements. We rely on e-mail and LiveJournal and Helio and MySpace, but what are these, really, but massively complex advertisement services? They’re not communication services so much as they are ad-delivery devices. Phone companies don’t care about you getting in touch with your grandma over the holidays. They want you to pay the bill. But the better the distraction, the more entertaining the entertainment, the less likely anyone will question the real reason for their existence.
Why does MySpace link people together? Why does YouTube give you millions of complimentary videos? Why do free newspapers exist? Look around the page this article is on and you’ll see your answer. Novelist Chuck Palahniuk nailed it when he said, “Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat.”
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