Tuesday, December 25, 2007

It is amazing what we take for granted

I know it's the holiday season and a title like the above would suggest I am about to post some sort of philosophical monologue about our sickening sense of entitlement as Americans and as people, but I'm not. It isn't that I feel there isn't much to be said, as I am sincerely thankful for what I have, despite the heightened tenor of my whining and bitching lately. Most Americans feel they are entitled to the world they live in. The idea that being thankful for what we have might be a good idea is irrelevant in a society Hell-bent on materialism. Like I said, there is a whole ream of paper that could be written on the subject by a layman like myself, I'm sure the experts have written volumes and then some. Fortunately, the idea that really sparked my need to write this post was that of how far communications technology has come in my lifetime and how incredibly normal what was once only dreamed of has become.

For instance, I have been sick as Hell lately. Since last Friday night, I have been battling a cold/flu that has stubbornly refused to give my body a moment's peace. Celebrating the onset of disease, I updated my Facebook status. A friend of mine saw this update and sent me a text message on my cell phone. This particular friend was in London visiting family at the time. Another friend caught wind of my Facebook update and shot me a text from Safety Harbor. Four or four thousand miles away, these people were only a few clicks away via my phone. I didn't speak to either of them, didn't whine in their ears or in their presence, but that didn't matter. It amazes me how connected we have become.

When I was a kid, we still had to make long distance phone calls on land lines and send letters through the mail. Companies were still communicating primarily through memos and hardcopy announcements. The web was something only a few humans on Earth even knew existed. The only cell phones around were massive bricks of plastic that required a huge battery and a transmitter/receiver which had to be carried. Only 15 or 20 years on and it seems almost primitive. The mind boggles at what might be possible in 15 or 20 more years.

Of course, the irony is that all this connectivity often leads to an increased sense of disconnection, in that we are always communicating through machines. My life has become so busy that I rarely see many of my friends face-to-face. We trade emails, text messages, and voice mails, but everyone's schedule is so packed with things to do that we rarely have the opportunity to sit down and enjoy each other's company. I suppose this lack of time has given rise to the popularity of electronic communication. We need to communicate, so we find whatever means we can to reach out of our own skins, even if the medium is artificial.

As artificial as it may be, and as relatively new as all of this technology really is, it all seems so normal as to have become a part of daily life, not unlike brushing our teeth or doing laundry. I can trade messages with relatives in Canada just as easily as I can trade emails with a cube farm neighbor. That is amazing to me, but to teenaged boys or girls, it is utterly mundane. For them, it is a part of the larger 'normal' that they accept as part and parcel of life's overall package. They have not known a world without internets, cell phones, PDAs, email, voicemail, etc. They are a generation steeped in connectivity, and yet, they suffer the same sense of disconnection and alienation so many of their less wired predecessors have experienced. We take communication for granted, but there simply is no replacement for direct contact. You would think that all of this technological advancement would provide us endless hours to interact with one another, but the further we go down this road, the less realistic that hope seems to be.

----------------
Now playing: Tool - Third Eye [Live]
via FoxyTunes

Labels:

Posted by Erik @ 12/25/2007 09:40:00 PM