My Nostalgia For A Less Techy World With People, Not Gadgets

In many ways, I’m old timey. I would wear a bonnet if it were socially acceptable. I wish I could churn my own butter. In high school I often dressed like an elderly lady. I like old things—buildings, furniture, trinkets, books, music, and cheeses. I am often suspicious of technology. If someone gave me a Kindle I would throw it across the room like a Chinese star. I hate it when bars are covered with TVs. I don’t own an iPhone. In fact, my smart phone is such an imbecile, I canceled its Internet service. I’ve never Internet dated.

Remember house phones? Remember when they become cordless? Remember how exciting caller ID was when it first came out? Remember pay phones? Remember when peoples’ faces were not stuck in their gadgets and actually spoke to one another? O, the halcyon days of yore.

This may make me sound like a curmudgeonly old lady, but I don’t like the ways in which technology is eroding our manners and propriety. For example, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people leave their phones on the table during a meal. Part of it is that I feel that people should actually talk to one another. Also, I am obsessed with food and don’t want any distractions. (That’s another reason I don’t understand the fusion of sex and food. Yucky!) Once my boyfriend and I were at a restaurant and saw a miserable looking couple who were on their smartphones during the whole meal. We promised never to become that couple, not only because they looked bored and unhappy, but also because the man was wearing socks and sandals.

I love that I have such easy access to endless information on the Internet. However, that is also ruining my attention span. Having grown up without it, all I had was books, so I  would do nothing but devour stacks and stacks of them. I was insatiable!  (I’m so glad I didn’t have Facebook when I was in high school. Had that been the case, there would have would have been a Facebook campaign/page/group against my hair.) Now, I’ll be halfway through a news article and then suddenly be compelled to Google things like “ugly babies” (terrifying), “nose jobs celebrities,” “writers who had crappy jobs before they got famous,” “people named Kermit,” etc.

One-third of Americans use Facebook in the bathroom (cochinos). Facebook is obviously insanely popular. I know I often use it to post my silly musings, which I hope make people laugh. (I sure hope I am not the only one laughing.) I’ve also met several great writers who I then met in real life. It is also the place where I pimp my writing and share interesting articles. In sum, Facebook is very useful for me. However, I believe that social networking has also made people less social. There seems to be a serious lack of community in our country.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the United States is now the most anxious nation in the world and according to the 2002 World Mental Health Survey:

people in developing-world countries such as Nigeria are up to five times less likely to show clinically significant anxiety levels than Americans, despite having more basic life-necessities to worry about. What’s more, when these less-anxious developing-world citizens emigrate to the United States, they tend to get just as anxious as Americans.

What the hell is our problem? Why are we a bunch of miserable grouches? The Slate article posits that it is the lack of community that is making us so unhappy. Social networking has also, in some ways, replaced real communities when in reality, it’s flesh and blood humans who make us feel better. The overwhelming amount of information we consume is also a big factor. I know, for example, I was recently devastated to learn that Snooki was a New York Times bestselling author.

The Internet also enables people to be cowardly. (Believe me when I say that everything I write, I would say in real life. If you know me, you know that this is true.) People can be very cruel because they don’t have to show who they are. So many people are bullied and harassed by those who may not have the gall to do it to your face. Technology can also take over people’s lives. In this extreme example, a South Korean couple let their baby girl starve to death because they became obsessed with raising a virtual daughter in an online role-playing game. The Internet can truly be the worst place on earth.

I’m going to make more of an effort to snub technology. Last week at a social media conference, I tweeted so much I wanted to punch myself. Now I’m going to leave my phone at home every once and a while and check my email and Facebook less frequently (this is so hard!). I suggest that you, too, try to neglect your gadgets. Talk to people. Laugh! Take a walk. Live in the physical world without so many distractions. After all, when we’re on our deathbeds we’re not going to remember Facebook posts, we’re going to remember human beings.

[Photo By s.t.a.r.k.]

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