Recently I was out with a friend when her smart phone started acting like a snobby third wheel. We'd be in mid-conversation when the table would vibrate, causing my friend to spring into action like a firefighter on call. While she rushed into the Facebook profile inferno, I'd instinctively take out my own phone, look at a few texts, and then play around with the 'calculator' function, just to look busy. Five years ago I would have been really annoyed, but it has become so normal for us to spend our 'social time' communicating with everyone except the person we're with, and I found myself just accepting it. Of course, this was a friend I text with all the time, who probably interrupts her visits with other people to respond to my messages. Welcome to modern times.
Many of us have become technologically schizophrenic, constantly rushing from one profile, conversation, or planet to another. We treat our phones like babies - taking them everywhere with us, cradling them, tending to them the moment they start to cry. Have you ever hung out with the parents of a baby? They're deranged! They're exhausted, their attention is all over the place, and they're covered in weird substances. Minus the substances, this is US! At lunch, on the bus, in the movies - obsessed parents taking care of our little machine babies. If smart phones are so intelligent, shouldn't they be taking care of each other? Why do we have to get involved?
I heard a report that members of our generation are masters at switching effortlessly between tasks. The flip side of that is that we're losing our attention spans. Many of us don't spend nearly as much time reading, inventing, and contemplating. But contemplation is what drives us forward. Should we expect the great thinkers of our time start having epiphanies in 140 characters or less? Are you even still reading this?!
I love that money and information move so quickly now. There's potential there to make the world more united, efficient, and dynamic. Look at these revolutions in the middle east where some of the greatest weapons were social networking sites. These new technologies are great, but they're just tools. It's up to us to create a society where we use our tools intelligently. If you don't use your hammer enough, things won't stay together. If you use it too much, you'll destroy everything around you. Technology will never have the ability to replace our time, our touch, our intimacy with each other. Right now we're all obsessed; afraid of being left behind. And the pressure of being current, constant, and present in the eyes of everyone around us has prevented us from being present in our own lives.
For as fast as some things have become, the speed of certain things has not changed. The earth continues to revolve around the sun at the same pace. It still takes the exact same amount of time to make a baby, reach a birthday, digest our food, grow into our bodies, and fall in love. Let's embrace the fact that being a person takes time. We don't need a cure for that.
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