Dropping our virtual masks
How technology is changing human connection, online and off
One recent afternoon in a quiet corner of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, I spent several hours with a collection of masks from Oceania. As tourists streamed past and rain darkened the windows, I was moved by how profoundly different our worlds have become and the power masks have — both to hide, and to reveal.
While many Americans would be hard-pressed to define the borders of Oceania on a map or identify indigenous peoples of the region, its geography comprises nearly a third of the world and includes hundreds of Pacific Ocean islands such as New Zealand, Fiji and Guam.
Masks, in particular, are what spoke to me that rainy afternoon. The collection at the Met features incredible examples of ceremonial and decorative pieces imbued with spiritual meaning and purpose, and many can be viewed online via virtual galleries.
Sitting amidst this art from halfway around the world made decades and centuries before, it struck me how trivial our daily lives have become, and how different are perceptions of reality are. Entire industries have now sprung from what used to be basic human needs, twisting and clouding them until we no longer recognize what we truly need, or why we need it. But here was real art, real spirituality, real meaning… masks not to hide but to provide a collective symbolic experience, to connect with the spirits of ancestors.
Today we use masks both virtual and physical to portray to one another who we are, what we own, what we believe, how important we are. We craft our personas on social media, we hide behind avatars, and we preen and perfect our outside appearance to present the best possible version of ourselves online and offline — regardless of how false it may be or how much work it took to achieve. We do this not for the collective good or for a higher purpose, but instead to assuage our fears, to make ourselves feel important, to show off how popular, or rich, or beautiful, or successful, we are. Perhaps to attract one another, to attract attention, or just to not feel so alone.
This need for connection may be what drove similar desires in our collective ancestors, wherever they lived. We are, after all, a social species that relies on family and community structure to raise and protect our future generations. We have not evolved away from this basic human truth, nor should we. But what we have done is deviate from our environment and from one another to such a degree that we’ve lost all sense of why we do the things we do. Perhaps we need to take a step back and consider why we’re here, and how the daily choices we make impact both the lives of others and our innermost, secret selves.
Why is this is happening now?
A focus on desire is not new, and indeed an old Taoist proverb comes to mind: “Our needs are few, but our wants are endless.” What is new is that the process has been radically sped up. Knowledge and expertise that used to take lifetimes to acquire is now available at our fingertips; we are all experts at everything, and nothing, at the same time. Goods that took years to make, and months to find, are now available via one-hour delivery. Basic needs like food and sex require only a few clicks on a smartphone to solicit. So much is within our grasp that we’ve unwittingly created an arms race of consumption, where we no longer question whether our needs are merely desires, only how quickly it can be possessed.
Access and convenience are not, in and of themselves, the problem. One could argue that the Internet, and by extension the information and connection it provides, has been one of the greatest inventions in human history — right up there with the wheel, agriculture, and the industrial revolution. But perhaps what this access has unwittingly fostered is a society too focused on superficiality, posturing and consumption for our own good.
There is a dark, slippery underbelly to conducting most of our interactions online: the human interaction element is removed to such a degree that we become two selves, or more. When we are masked by screens, it becomes easier to craft half-truths about who we are, easier to scorn others for their beliefs through the cloak of anonymity, easier to create a persona that serves our base needs for recognition but hides our most vulnerable, real selves. Even for those of us who do so unconsciously or with good intentions, we are divided selves.
And despite all outward appearances of our nation’s success, we aren’t necessarily better off for this connectivity and convenience. Americans’ consumption of self-help and happiness advice is higher than ever, yet recent studies indicate we’re are more likely than other nations to report being unhappy. So how can we reconcile our ceaseless wanting with the underlying truth of human existence? How can we reconnect with our past, and interact with the present, in a thoughtful way?
The answer may be closer that you think
Here’s how you can begin to unravel the cord:
Turn off your smartphone, shut down the wifi, and remove the filters of technology that separate you from the rest of humanity.
Write down your feelings and explore them, instead of firing off a tweet. Go outside and revel in the nature around you, rather than posting photos about it.
Visit a museum and really think about the art, instead of taking selfies. Go see musicians perform live, and think about what it took to create that music. Read an actual book all the way through, and talk to others about it.
And when a question comes up in your adventures, resist the urge to Google the answer. See how much the people around you already know, and what you might learn without the crutch of technology.
We can always come back later to drink from the firehose of information and dive back into always-on connectivity — perhaps, next time, with a more mindful approach.
