STYLE RANT: IN CONSTANT COMMUNICATION & OUT MEANINGFUL COMMUNICATION
This is surely not an original thought, but increasingly I’ve noticed that as people are more connected to each other with technology, they are less connected to each other with social interaction. They are also less connected to the real world they live in. Nearly everyone has constant communication to literally everyone everywhere at all times, and all this immediate communication and virtual reality has done a lot for us – and to us.
Not long ago I was walking to yoga on a perfectly lovely day when a man approached, head down, eyes on screen of his electronic device, earbuds in ears, bobbing and weaving down the sidewalk. I dodged left; I dodged right; I said “Excuse me” in a loud voice. I still collided with him as I couldn’t predict his erratic path whilst he was deep in some virtual world instead of Mt. Vernon Avenue where he was walking. Then he glared at me and went on.
I am alternately perplexed and fascinated by people in coffee shops. Last week, an attractive couple who appeared to be college students was seated at a table next to me, both on their phones talking to other people the entire time. I wondered why they were there together. I see people in what look like pajamas, intent on their laptops for hours at a time, never looking up, talking to no one. I can do that without getting out of bed, let alone going out.
A job recruiter I know schedules appointments on the hour all day. At least once a day someone shows up late – usually very late – smartphone in hand, complaining they got lost, couldn’t find the place, got off at the wrong Metro stop, whatever, and are miffed because they have to reschedule. “But I called/texted/Tweeted,” they whine, “and told you I was late.” Well, calling/messaging is better than not calling/messaging, but when did communicating the fact they are late absolve them from being on time? And does a message reading “I B L8” inspire confidence? And lastly, why didn’t they use their smartphone to find out how to get there?
I grew up in the dark ages, before cellphones. I can remember public telephone booths that one had to search out to make a call away from home or work. These public telephones involved depositing coins (remember those?) and keying in a phone number that you had to either remember or look up. Calling someone when out and about involved some level of effort and presumably a more important message than, “I’m at the supermarket.” One is forced to hear half of the most banal conversations in all manner of public places. I’d have thought the novelty of being able to call anyone from anywhere would have worn off by now.
People used to go to concerts to see performers live and in the flesh. It was an event, a moment. As in, “Lady Gaga is coming and I can’t wait to see her!” Now no one is really watching or experiencing the event – everyone is recording it on their smartphones. I can’t help but think that we are losing something of the present moment by always having a touch-screen between us and the world. Everything is reduced to a palm-sized flat image. I read somewhere that the most memorable moment in rock was at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival when Jimmy Hendrix knelt down on stage, poured lighter fluid on his guitar, and set fire to it. Had the audience all had smartphones, would that still be true? What, exactly, would we remember?
Then there is the person who has is bored because he has no plans for the weekend but instead of going to a party with friends where he can meet real live people, he goes online looking for dating websites where he can “meet” someone. Perhaps predictably, I stumbled onto the most extreme example of online “dating” on the Dr. Phil show, where a woman had maintained an online “relationship” with her “boyfriend” for three years without ever meeting him. It turned out the “boyfriend” was a fake online persona created by a young woman who clearly had both too much time on her hands and a personality disorder. But how can you have a “relationship” (and I use all these quotes advisedly) with someone you have never met? I can’t wrap my brain around it.
George Orwell once wrote an essay entitled “Politics and the English Language,” in which he observed that shorthand, clichéd communication “makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” The immediate nature of texting/Tweeting/instant messaging, combined with the erroneous feeling of anonymity provided by the Internet encourages people to impart to others the most idle and foolish of thoughts. When we are face-to-face with someone, most of us have enough of a filter on our mouths to not blurt out “That hat makes you/her/him look like a really bad version of Pharrell, and it doesn’t make me ‘Happy’ at all.” At the distance of a couple of cell towers and touch screens, it’s all too easy to “share” this snarky thought and accompanying photo before we think.
One hopes that some people will rediscover “classic” communication. There is a TV ad for an app to find hotel rooms instantly, which Captain Obvious doesn’t need because his social skills are never going to get him a one-night stand, let alone a girlfriend. There’s still something to be said for putting down that gadget and talking to real, live people. Of course, as a wardrobe stylist, I’ve got to tell Captain Obvious to lose that hat.
