Hi-Tech, Low Human
Is technology bringing us more or less opportunity?
“What Silicon Valley sells and we buy is not transcendence but withdrawal. We flock to the virtual because the real demands too much of us.” — Nicholas Carr
First, a story. A father, doing his best to support his family, provides for his son not only a gift, but a genius lesson:
My father simply couldn’t be embarrassed when it came to fulfilling his family’s needs. I remember once we were driving down the road to our home when Dad spotted a broken Big Wheel tricycle in someone’s trash. He stopped the car…and knocked on the door of the home.
“I spotted this Big Wheel in your trash,” he told the owner. “Do you mind if I take it? I think I can fix it. It would make me feel wonderful to give my son something like this…
“Of course,” she gushed, explaining that her children were grown and that years had passed since the toy had been used. “You’re welcome to the bicycle I have, too…”
So we drove on. I had a “new” Big Wheel to ride and a bike to grow into. She had a smile and a fluttering heart that only benevolence breeds. And Dad had taught me that there is genius, even kindness, in being bold.
(This excerpt is from Never Eat Alone, shared with me by Katie Johnson)
He saw an opportunity and seized it in a most human way. But it made me wonder, does this happen anymore?
As our living arrangements become more compact and our devices absorb more of our viewing time, nobody really notices the Big Wheels in our neighbor’s yard — at least not enough to reach this kind of bold conclusion. The neighborhoods of today don’t stand up to the standards of my childhood where everyone knew each other, for better or worse.
I also see far too many people, even those living in impoverished areas, glued to their phone, unaware of the world around them. Even if there was a desire to be bold, it seems we are losing the sense of community that rewards boldness. If nothing else, we have certainly lost this dad’s rough individualism.
This story reminded me of a Medium piece I wrote over a year ago, reflecting on the same kind of point: “Why don’t people drop by anymore?”
…the Google Calendar Age bore some strange fruit. Think about what even a good friend would do these days if you “stopped by” his or her house without asking. I don’t think it’s too bold to say it has become socially odd to invite yourself into someone’s space just to say hello. And what if you did and they weren’t there?
Thirty years ago your parents rang your cousin’s landline — if they did not answer, you went over there. Neighbors walked around back and friends commonly met up at the baseball field.
How many people would you be comfortable with dropping by at any time?
Technology is commonly regarded as a best friend who continuously makes our lives better and easier. But with it, the spontaneity of the human relationship has really waned over the past 30 years. The bid to make our time more efficient, through calendars and devices, has strangely put us at odds with the original goal: to help us spend more time on human efforts. Instead, we find ourselves using that extra time on even more tech.
I cannot argue that technology has not done good. It has connected us in ways like never before: stretching relationships across thousands of miles and allowing instant communication very cheaply. There are many such examples. In fact, I would argue that the technology itself is no enemy to the human relationship, but we allow it out of its proper role, making it instead an object of worship. The culture of adoption is what has led to our detrimental use of technologies. Nicholas Carr argued the same yesterday in Aeon:
What we’ve always found hard to abide is that the world follows a script we didn’t write. We look to technology not only to manipulate nature but to possess it, to package it as a product that can be consumed by pressing a light switch or a gas pedal or a shutter button. We yearn to reprogram existence, and with the computer we have the best means yet…What Silicon Valley sells and we buy is not transcendence but withdrawal. The screen provides a refuge, a mediated world that is more predictable, more tractable, and above all safer than the recalcitrant world of things. We flock to the virtual because the real demands too much of us.
The book my colleague was reading, however, uses the tricycle as a metaphor for opportunity, an elusive word which constantly dwells in the rear of all our brains. What causes it? How do we find more of it?
But my question is: are we missing opportunity when we shutter the world?More precisely, does technology make human relationships — which are so important in our lives and careers — more difficult to attain and maintain?
How many times have you wished you had known that one important person who could have gotten you a job or led you to your future wife?
There is a correlation here between facetime and opportunity that no one wants to talk about. For example, how many fewer people do you meet using a GPS versus asking for directions? Or, at parties and barbeques, social anxiety used to be broken by a joke or laugh. Now we automatically turn inwards to a device that can be both our confidence and jester.
This distraction and dependency is what Carr explains is the real trade:
The culture that emerged on the network, and that now extends deep into our lives and psyches, is characterised by frenetic production and consumption — smartphones have made media machines of us all — but little real empowerment and even less reflectiveness. It’s a culture of distraction and dependency. That’s not to deny the benefits of having easy access to an efficient, universal system of information exchange. It is to deny the mythology that shrouds the system. And it is to deny the assumption that the system, in order to provide its benefits, had to take its present form.
But how many more people do we meet by having Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn? My tongue in cheek answer is, not many.
We accept the illusion and distraction because it pleases us. We love it. We love new gizmos and we love showing off. But by relaxing our guard and accepting technology in the exact form it is sold to us, we allow that same technology to quietly transform our habits and manifest in our psyches. Whether that transformation is good or not is really up to you.
As for dad, he made good use of the human relationship and taught his son a valuable lesson. There is nothing the internet could have done better.
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