I had a lengthy discussion the other day with my own personal Luddite. Unlike me, she's never liked technology, had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the smart phone age, and has probably sent fewer emails in her life than other people I know send in a week.
She's not on Facebook, or Twitter. She doesn't like texting. And in a world where everyone is more connected to each other, she feels increasingly alone.
"No one talks anymore," she said. At coffee break, co-workers used to have conversations. Now they have their eyes glued to their iPhones or androids.
She was especially despondent because her phone never rings anymore. No one wants to talk. When you're single and most other people have married and had kids, they get caught up in their own lives. My wife and I experienced this for ourselves. When other friends had kids before us, we dropped off their radar. And when we had kids, our single friends kind of dropped off our radar, too.
My phone, too, never rings, like ever. My email correspondence is dead from 4 p.m. Friday until 8 a.m. Monday.
I heartily agree with this notion no one talks anymore. You see it at the ball diamonds. Instead of talking amongst each other, probably half of those present aren't really there. They are in some distance, text-based world.
In restaurants now, people are more involved with conversations with people on their phones than with the person across the booth. Look up, into my eyes, please, not at your phone. Oh, and if your phone goes off when I am talking with you, please silence it, don't answer it and tune me out. What, did you forget I was here in front of you, exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide?
"We've regressed in our communications," I told her, much to her agreement. How is a 140 character text message or tweet in any way superior to "Hello, how are you?" It's not. If it was, Morse Code might be the next in thing.
Apple's Facetime on the iPhone, however, is another story. I use it regularly. In fact, I am using it right now. The ability to talk to people face-to-face is remarkable. I remember Barbara Frum on the CBC's The Journal doing face-to-face satellite communications back in the 1980s. It was amazing when I was a kid, seeing it on TV. Now my kids can talk to relatives just like Popular Mechanics promised.
More importantly, it is an efficient form of communication. I can talk a lot faster than I can type. This is progress.
For a guy who works out of his basement, social media is both a blessing and a curse. Facebook in many ways is my only social outlet, because there's no water cooler to chat around. There's no office politics, either. That's a pretty sad state of affairs, but it's also the truth. In some ways, Facebook keeps me sane.
I've been guilty of some of this behaviour. Partly it's because there's so much interesting stuff on my phone - mostly reading news. But part of it is probably social ignorance.
I wonder if chiropractors have more business now due to all the craning necks, bent out of shape due to looking down all the time. It can't be healthy.
At least they'll make some money off it.
- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
