How Can We Be So Connected and So Lonely?
The woman frantically dialed 9-1-1 with her one remaining free hand. When the operator picked up, she described her frightful situation and begged for help to come. Time was running out.
Detained by her attacker, she couldn’t open the door when the authorities began to knock. Both hands were now bound and she would soon run out of oxygen. Each movement she made to get free only enticed her captor to grow stronger. She began to pray.
Knowing the situation inside was dire and mere seconds could mean life or death, the emergency crew forced open her door. Filling her house, they found her and the attacker struggling on the living room floor. The policeman pulled out a knife and looked for a place to stab the offender so they would loosen their grip.
As he raised his knife ready to free the woman, she shouted, “No! Don’t kill him!”
“Why not?” the confused officer asked in return.
“Because,” she answered. “He’s my pet. Just get him off of me and let’s put him back in his cage. He’s usually a very gentle boa constrictor.”
The power of community in the palm of your hand
We have the power to build or destroy community in the palms of our hands these days. Miniature super computers that we call phones can bring us the world and simultaneously broadcast us to it. With so much power at our literal fingertips, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s possible with all of this technology. And sadly, there are times when many of us mistake such power for real community. We want to keep the benefits of our phones when in fact these devices are slowly suffocating us.
The connection power of modern technology
Technology exists to connect in one of three ways:
Information to information
Information to people
People to people
Issues with technology in general and phones in particular arise when we mistake any of these for another, thinking we’re building community when in fact we’re destroying it. A deeper dive:
Information, please
The promise of technology all along has been that it will make our lives easier. As I write this I hear the hum of the washing machine in the background, allowing me to write while technology cleans my gym clothes. If I had to wash each article of clothing by hand let’s face it - I’d either smell a lot worse or never work out again. God bless that spin cycle that puts my socks through the wringer so I don’t have to.
Better yet is when technology allows devices to complete tasks that I don’t even have to initiate. My phone tells my thermostat when I’m heading home so the house can begin cooling or warming to my desired level of comfort. My bank sends money to the credit card company automatically based on a due date so my payment is on time (and I can buy more gym socks). Groceries and air filters arrive on a set schedule. When information connects to information it gives me time to do other things that provide more meaning, like spending time writing or eating with my family.
Gimme the 411
Taking things one step further, our phones are great for connecting information not just to other information, but rather to people. Never again do I have to wonder who won the College World Series in 1988 or where Sigourney Weaver went to school (hint: it’s the same place). Want to settle a trivia question among friends or know the fastest route to work this morning? Look it up.
News travels fast, so you don’t have to wait until a printed copy of the paper hits your driveway tomorrow morning to learn about what happened just now. Or just now. Or even a few minutes from now. It’ll all be online somewhere very soon so you can stay “informed.”
Of course, sometimes news even travels faster than the truth, which means a rumor or lie can be shared millions of times before the truth sets it free. And once it does there is no guarantee whatsoever that anyone who read and believed the lie will stand corrected. Information can hit more people more quickly than ever, even if it’s the wrong information.
Mano a mano
Which leads me to the greatest potential for modern technology - to connect people to people. In 1860, it took a full 10 days to say “Sup?” to someone in California from Missouri. Now, you can text that to a baker’s dozen at 2 AM if you’re feeling, well, up for anything, cowboy.
My aunt used to live in South America which meant that back in the 80’s, she and her sister (my mom) caught up once a month via phone. One day we got a fax machine so they could send letters to one another faster than ever. And while my aunt lives in the US now, were she to still be in Chile, I think they’d opt for texts and at least emails.
And if this pandemic made us better at anything it’s that most people now can use FaceTime or Zoom to say hello or conduct a meeting without too much of of a hitch. Video calls became a beautiful lifeline for many over the last 18 months when in person gatherings and travel wasn’t safe. Video happy hours, dates, and reunions proliferated, and we were the better for it because the medium allowed for human-to-human connection, which we’re wired to seek out at all costs.
Never more connected, never more lonely
But, something isn’t quite clicking like it should. If these technologies and devices are capable of connecting us, why are they also so incredibly divisive? We’ve never been more connected, but we’ve also never been lonelier or more angry.
Nearly 80% of people have smartphones, but about 60% of people also report being lonely (and that was pre-pandemic). More people report being angrier than they ever have. So what’s to blame?
It’s that damn snake of an iPhone, squeezing life out of us when it promises to offer us so much benefit. There’s a fine line between utility and captivity, and we’re bad at navigating it.
That danger rears its ugly head most when we confuse what’s being connected. We think social media is connecting us person-to-person, but it’s really just connecting people to information. Oh - you saw Mark’s vacation photos (information) and now you hate Mark because he has everything you wish you did and he really sucks and doesn’t deserve it? Or you saw what Jean said (information) and oh my god how can she believe that she’s so dumb you’re embarrassed to be friends with her? And just like that, a tool that promised to connect us to people only feeds us information and turns us against one another, leaving us angry and lonely.
Wanna really know how and why this happens?
As much as we like to think of ourselves as rational beings who put truth-seeking above all else, we are social animals wired for survival. In times of perceived conflict or social change, we seek security in groups. And that makes us eager to consume information, true or not, that lets us see the world as a conflict putting our righteous ingroup against a nefarious outgroup. (source)
In other words, we want community so bad we’ll ditch the truth to find it, which our phones enable because of their technological reach. We want to keep petting the snake that’s killing more and more each minute.
It’s time to put down the phone.
It didn’t use to be this hard to connect
I remember it being easier to connect and communicate. Perhaps the target was smaller (fewer people) with less reach, but truth, clarity, and community prevailed. This happened because at the heart of communication was community. (Funny how those words start with the same letters, huh? Both come from Latin origins where we also get our word “common” from.)
So if we want to feel less angry and lonely, we’ve got to use technology and not use technology to connect human-to-human once more. Here’s what I mean:
Your phone is not the only or best way to communicate
It’s easy to type out a text or email to send someone, usually to fulfill an obligation, with no real effort on your part. And while technology makes this easy, it can also easily make it meaningless. “HBD” texted at 11PM on your birthday doesn’t mean as much as the handwritten letter that arrived the day before. Let’s stop thinking that just because we can text with all the modern conveniences doesn’t mean we are limited to. Deeper question: who do you love enough to do something inconvenient for?
Phones can be weapons, so they need safety protocols
Smart phones, particularly in the hands of young people whose brains are still developing, can be very dangerous. I won’t dive into that here since several others have done excellent work (American Girls is a must read for any parent.). But the use of devices to bully isn’t limited to teenagers.
Ditto that phones as weapons aren’t limited to physical or emotional violence. They can also steal your time and kill your sense of presence. If you’re eating a meal with someone, working hard at the gym, in the middle of a meeting, or driving a car, by all means put your f**king phone down. Distraction is the thief of connection, no matter the medium. Deeper question: can you create a memory so intense you don’t even need to ‘gram it?
Get your phone to do less so you can do more
I just got a new phone and am committed to not putting email on it. So far, so good. Email as a communication medium sucks (read all about that here) so the less emailI do, the more I can actually get done and the better I can do it. Not having it linked on my phone means I don’t find myself playing email roulette when I’m bored or distracted or stuck at a red light. Rather, I can literally do anything else than check email which means I’m getting back more balance and reducing stress (since most of my emails are work related). Just because you can email from anywhere doesn’t mean that you should email from everywhere.
Let’s let our phones connect us to vital info when we need it and deeply (and authentically) connect us to other humans moreso (so no social media). Real phone calls. Text chains if you must. Picture sharing and video conferencing. Deeper question: what can you stop doing with your phone so you can start doing it better without it?
And what about you? What rules or practices do you have with your phone so you can focus on real human connections?
Don’t do the least when it comes to building community; give the most even if it means your smart phone becomes pretty dumb.
