Reflections on the puddle of life

I agree with you and I have wondered about this too, there are so many gadgets in the everyday home. I have also wondered a lot about this new need to have a bunch of things that only do one thing like only for pizza and only for boiling rice and another one for popcorn, like we need 10 different items to do something that you really only need the stove and the oven to do.

I have one foot in and one foot out on this post Fifth. I agree with you on the the importance of sharing and family time. I also agree that the corporations push profitability by marketing to young people or to people who can afford all the personal devices. On the other hand, I hate sharing. I have my own mobile phone, computer, and a Kindle. However, we have one TV, so we need to find compromise when picking a show off Netflixs. So in this regard, having one device or TV does force the sharing and family time. I suppose, I hate the idea of waiting or sharing, when I need to get things done- make a call, search on the computer. Time is ticking and I don't want to waste it waiting for Mr. Jersea to stop fooling around on the computer when I can do it on my own device. But this may change as my family grows up, my son is still little and we plan to have one more child. So at this point, this view is still slanted in the sense that I have lived as a married person for many years with a slightly disposable income. What do we do with the extra, but buy technology? Nice blog entry.

As a misanthrope I always find it a bit irksome when the word isolation is always seems to have some stigma attached to it. I read a similar article to this a while back in a magazine, but isolation is not altogether or always a bad thing. And for some people it is a preferred state of being.

I can see where in a family dynamic it might have some negative affects, particularly where children are involved interaction is necessary, but when the media throws that word isolation around like it is a dirty word, it always makes me feel as if they are trying to force their social conventions on me.

I choose my own isolation and simply use technology as a way to help reinforce it. When I do venture out into public having my ipod with me generally serves a barrier to prevent other people from attempting to communicate with me. I usually prefer my experiences to be of an individual nature.

Good entry as usual, Fifth. I have noticed that phenomenon and worried about it a little.

As to the word isolation, I find it interesting that it has that negative connotation.I agree that it does. I looked up the word solitude, which has a more positive connotation-and discovered that the two words mean almost exactly the same thing, at least according to the dictionary I used.

People do still seem to be connecting. However I read an article, I think it was in the New York Times, about how the landline phone was actually connected to the house, and of course the cell phone is not.

What I find most worrisome is that I don't think people care. They just love their little toys. I speak as one who has a cell phone. I miss my old landline, but financial choices had to be made. I have never had an ipod, and never will. I don't like ear buds. I will use headphones when listening to youtube if others are in the room.

My main problem with my family is not that we can't or don't share, but that we don't seem to have very much in common, and can't seem to find an activity to enjoy as adults. It was easier to come up with things to do when they were small.

Fifth,

I really enjoyed this blog, and being a like-minded person, I agree with the concerns that you express here. The technological personalization is creating greater social separation and, even more, a decaying sense of local community.

I've always poo-pooed listening to an iPod with earphones/earbuds. Even on my runs, when I see nearly every other runner plugged into some battery-powered gadget, I avoid using one, preferring instead take in the sounds around me.

I think, as you, that there are so many opportunities to lose touch with the environment and people around us. Maybe such losing touch is something that we will adapt to: we'll trade so many shares touch for more shares of iTouch. And maybe society will be no worse off -- as when we traded more public rail travel for personal cars. . .at least in rural America we have done so.

Now that I think about it, individuals will probably be fine. Different, but fine. But local communities will suffer because the individuals will have far fewer emotional bonds to their neighbors (in the general sense). I know in my rural community attendance at our live music, theater, and art events (what few we have) is way down. And these events are largely free. People would rather stay home and watch similar events on YouTube or Google images, I imagine.

I had three main reactions to this blog, two in which are in complete disagreement with you, one that is half disagreement, half not.
1. You said:

And it got me to thinking about the way technology, and perhaps the desire to increase profits, seems to be pushing us down an increasingly individualistic route, as opposed to encouraging us to share experiences.

There is this mindset that there is some evil corporation manipulating our minds to buy things we don’t want. On its surface that is just so simple minded. If you don’t want to buy them, then don’t. People buy those products because they want them. People eat at McDonalds because they like it for the price. If it were so easy to just push stuff onto people against their will you would think that they could sell washboards and washtubs instead of washing machines. Would you buy a washboard no matter how hard the advertising? In fact they tried around here to force McDonalds to serve healthier foods, and so McDonalds capitulated and started offering salads and such. It was a failure. Nobody bought them. Those products are popular because people want them. I can tell you I love my ipod.

2. New technology requires adjustment. People will socialize to the level they feel comfortable, with or without these gadgets. It’s just as easy to sit in one’s room with the door closed away from the family. At one time bards told stories to a group. Then books came about and since literacy was rare, one person read to the group. I bet there was that individual, if it wasn’t the bard himself, who now said that society was going to hell in a hand basket because stories were no longer invented on the spot. People were no longer relating to the story teller. And then when literacy spread and the printing press mass produced books, was there that Fifth Element-type who bemoaned that now everyone was reading by themselves with their own book and not interacting with society? I imagine there was. I remember as a teen I was hardly ever relating with family. I was either hanging out or playing ball with friends, and when I was home I was either reading or watching TV. I was in my own world and I didn’t need technological devices to isolate myself from my parents and siblings. If your claim is that the new technology makes it easier, I would say society hasn’t adjusted to it yet. There are new stresses to family life, but I don’t think it’s any different than the stresses that came when the automobile first became widespread, or when mandatory education (now there’s something that keeps the family apart) was stipulated, or when supermarkets started selling foods instead of growing it yourself.

3. Dark Muse is right. A person chooses his isolation or solitude. A person doesn’t need technology to do that. Heck monks and nuns and hermits have been doing that for centuries. Walling yourself from the outside has its positives and negatives, but ultimately its one’s choice. Does a person derive more pleasure from hiking through the country with his ipod in his ears or without his ipod? Well, that’s his choice. He ought to know which gives him more pleasure. I think you have a better argument if you didn’t argue personal isolation and you focused on alienation. Isolation or solitude is a personal choice (unless one is in prison) but alienation is a phenomenon that occurs beyond one’s power to control. There could be an argument to be made (and I don’t think you’re quite making this argument) that technology has alienated us from human contact and social structure. Such an argument is an update of the D.H. Lawrence argument that technology has alienated us from the divine; Lawrence pushes that argument beyond human contact and social structure, though certainly related. By the way T.S. Eliot on the other hand finds the alienation rooted in the cultural changes (read The Wasteland) , which I tend to find more to my sympathy. Modern literature at its best shows the human condition alienated.

So where I half agree with you are what these new technologies are doing to our brains. What seems to be different now is that our brains are being hooked to constant stimulation. Ipods, walkmans, computers, internet, the brain is subject to constant impulses. Psychologists are finding that constant stimulation from these new devices are altering the brain workings: http://lateralaction.com/articles/internet-brain/. That article is mostly about the internet, which I think is the biggest culprit, but all these digital devices are providing constant activity. Essentially we are feeding doses of pleasure with every click of the mouse as we surf and find either pleasing sites or sites that makes us angry, but either way you are surging with hormones in reaction. If you sit for hours at a computer on the internet, you are undoubtedly giving the brain experiences from outside the normal human condition. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean detrimental but it is different. I don’t think we know if it is detrimental. The human condition has proven to be extremely flexible. I can tell you though I feel like my attention span has shrunk since I’ve been an internet user. The core problem that I see is that we never have time for internal contemplation, never have time to slow down, to quiet the brain, to listen to ourselves. We are constantly overriding our internal voice, either with music or with images. Is that a new alienation? Something to think about.

Thanks Helga, Buh4bee, Qimi and Comedian. Comedian, I think you make a good point about hearing the sounds of nature, I like that too. I generally only use my iPod on the train, and even then not always. Since I started cycling I've come to really enjoy that connection with the outside world, and it's not just nature but people too.

Virgil woah...there's a load of putting words in my mouth. Goodness I lost track of all the things you think I said which I didn't. That post says a lot more about your ideology than mine that's for sure. Starting with this point:

There is this mindset that there is some evil corporation manipulating our minds to buy things we don’t want.

Sorry, where did I say that? They're your words not mine. What I said was:

And it got me to thinking about the way technology, and perhaps the desire to increase profits, seems to be pushing us down an increasingly individualistic route

Where did I say 'evil'? Where did I say 'forcing us to buy things we don't want'? Read my blog again, you won't find those words there. I work for a corporation Virgil. The primary goal of any corporation is to make profits. Are you saying it's not? If not, then where's the disagreement? All those words you've said seem to be anticipating an argument I simply haven't made. Very nice, but if you want to know what I think ask me and don't put words in my mouth. You say:

On its surface that is just so simple minded. If you don’t want to buy them, then don’t.

So it's nice that you think I'm simple minded. Thank you for the kindness and respect. Or am I putting words in your mouth now? Nowhere did I say that people were forced to buy things they didn't want. I'm sure there are some interesting studies on the effect of marketing on the brain, just as you posted an interesting study on the effect of technology on the brain. But as it wasn't part of my argument, I didn't post it. Actually the blog was mainly a question.

So from a profitability point of view, it's great. But what does it do for social connections?

See the question mark? That's a question, not a statement. Just in case you missed it first time around. Here's a statement:

And the more I think about it, the more it seems that this technology, these gadgets, are actually driving a wedge in social connections.

No one, not even you or Muse, have disagreed with that.

A person chooses his isolation or solitude.

Did I say they didn't? But your own post suggest that it's not quite that simple:

What seems to be different now is that our brains are being hooked to constant stimulation.Ipods, walkmans, computers, internet, the brain is subject to constant impulses. Psychologists are finding that constant stimulation from these new devices are altering the brain workings

So if we're getting 'hooked' at what point does 'choice' become 'compulsion'? I don't know the answer, hence the question mark.

And then again, your own argument seems to be at odds with itself. Here you say:

I feel like my attention span has shrunk since I’ve been an internet user. The core problem that I see is that we never have time for internal contemplation, never have time to slow down, to quiet the brain, to listen to ourselves.

Doesn't the same rule apply? Can't you just choose to switch off and and spend some time thinking? No one forces you to go on the internet, use your iPod etc, right? If you want to improve your attention span then just switch them off. As to the lack of time, that's not the case. We all have loads of leisure time, much more than our predecessors (my Granddad, for example, worked a 6 day week). It's what you're choosing to do with the time that's the problem, isn't it?

So, my question was: is this increasing technological isolation a good thing? Is it improving social connections or driving a wedge between them?

Wait. You’re the one that brought up profits and you brought it up twice; it was not an accident. What do profits have to do with the argument of isolating ourselves in technologies if you’re not taking a backhanded slap at corporations that make them? Everything that’s sold has profit on it. Bread at a bakery has profit on it. It’s irrelevant unless you have an point to make. And you made it: “perhaps the desire to increase profits, seems to be pushing us down an increasingly individualistic route." Pushing us down against our better judgment is a less blunt, less charged way of saying corporations are manipulating us against our will. That’s an old argument that goes back at least 175 years to Karl Marx, and frankly is in every other left wing essay criticizing business. Even the word "individualistic" is charged with ideology. If you didn’t intend it, if you don’t hear it in the language that you wrote, then you’re not hearing a cliché. In poetry clichés are phrases; in argumentative rhetoric, it’s ideas. But whether you intended it or not, I didn’t pull it out of the air. It’s there on the page, and in rhetorical terms, unconsciously or not, you are using it as a justifying inference.

So if we're getting 'hooked' at what point does 'choice' become 'compulsion'? I don't know the answer, hence the question mark.

and

Doesn't the same rule apply? Can't you just choose to switch off...

That's a fair critique of my point. I perhaps overextended the "hooked" experience. It's probably some sort of mild addiction (I'm not privy to any study results), less so than gambling and way less than drugs, and unlike those addictions I really don't see any social detriment, other than making people more lazy.

So, my question was: is this increasing technological isolation a good thing? Is it improving social connections or driving a wedge between them?

Neither. Like I said, a person chooses his isolation or solitude. He could just as easily shut himself in his room as put ipod and headphones on. Frankly what's so important about this value statement you made:

Comedian, I think you make a good point about hearing the sounds of nature, I like that too.

What’s so special about listening to nature over listening to music in one's "technological isolation" as one hikes in the woods, unless one is making the DH Lawrence point, which goes actually back to Wordsworth, that contact with nature is contact with the divine? If someone told me he preferred to listen to Mozart’s Jupiter symphony over the cawing sounds of birds, I would understand. I probably would prefer it myself.