We're only, really, 20 years into the changes that have been, are being, and will be wrought by this "world-wide web" of communication. And the wireless aspect of it, which has made everything portable, is really less than 10 years along. These changes really do confront us with "Future Shock" as envisioned by Toffler: We've got astounding new capabilities for obtaining, exchanging, and using information. And we've got new ways of being entertained, diverted, and frankly LOST in a labyrinth--as well as new ways of sense-making, way-finding, and connecting, that some refer to as "neural networks." This is literally pushing our "humanness" into a wide new sphere of being and relating. The West has already been involved in this "project" of individual empowerment and differentiation for centuries--exploring, exploiting, and expanding in service of individual uniqueness and (in part) escape from tradition...community...relation. It's useful to note the changes that affect people as the internet becomes the ubiquinet...but at the same time as old patterns of knowing and being change, erode, and disappear, new ways emerge too. One thing can be said, neutrally and truthfully: The tools, the pathways, are available for us to make of our future what we will--in solitary or solidarity.
4
By the time I write this comment, there are already 274 other comments, perhaps within a few hours of being published. Mr. Brooks, in the past you'd be lucky to receive a handful of opinions about your article in one week. Perhaps we are addicted to our phones, much like we were addicted to TV a few years ago. Is that bad? I'm not sure. It's what you do with the information you receive that's important.
9
Perhaps at some point Mr. Brooks will make some suggestions about how to undue on a massive scale the impact of pervasive, separative technology working in the interest of advertising dollars and at the behest of our latest generation of billionaires. Racetracks?
6
Online chat boards and communities seem to breed an atmosphere of judgment. It's easy to criticize others when they are just names or faces on your device. This habit of criticizing (masked as "being honest") carries over to other aspects of relationships. Deep friendships require trust and a sense of acceptance, that knowledge that even when you are not at your best you will still be loved. People are too impatient and too critical to allow trust to flourish. And the internet is absolutely part of the reason why.
11
Mr. Brooks, you are only partially correct. Perhaps it is because you have a full-time job that demands your attention. There are many younger people in the country who find that social media interaction provides an opportunity to explore and learn beyond the rigid confines of their families and more immediate social confines. Social media sometimes gets them thinking and questioning. For some, that may be a good thing; others, not. There are also the retired, who find intellectual stimulation and the opportunity to reach out to others beyond their immediate surroundings. As an example, we live in an area where many of our good friends and neighbors are politically very conservative. No one discusses political views for fear of offending the others. Social media provides an outlet for both sides to express views without fear of offending the folks that we thoroughly enjoy at every other level. In addition social media gives us an opportunity to communicate, to joke, to share beautiful pictures and art, to share poetry and stories, greetings, caring and sharing accomplishments, and even failures. For many it is a great source of fun. For many it does not supplant reading listening, and observing; it is just a supplement.
17
In Montaigne's time, a child was likely to witness in/near one's home the death of a grandparent, birth of a child, the slaughter of meat for a meal; if one had problems, you chatted with a friend. Now our meat comes from the grocery store, advice is outsourced to psychologists, the generations are shuttled to their respective locations (homes for the elderly, schools/daycare for children): the functions tending to life have been outsourced to specialists. So this process of reducing the dimensions of a life has been ongoing for some time. Add in a parallel (related?) trend in narcissism (see: Lasch), and the technology to find higher quality "content" from the Cloud, and the dearth of friends seems less surprising. And yet no less sad.
33
Had I had the Internet or social media thirty years ago, I would have known that the disc replacement a dr recommended (made by Vitek)for my tmj pain was, in fact, defective and was destroying its recipients jaw bones, not to mention their lives. The FDA eventually recalled it. Twelve surgeries later I live a life that is very isolating and revolves around medical treatments. I use Facebook to connect with friends from high school and college (we've moved several times for my husband's career) as well as others who have had the same debilitating surgery I have had. I share my experience to prevent others from going through the same hell. I would love to have a few more local friends but most people
my age are working and not home because they are unable to work. Does that make me a loser? I don't think so. I do have a theory about smart phones in general and how they seem to foster rudeness, especially driving. I think they make us less dependent on others (I can call for help all by myself assuming I'm still conscious), so what does it matter if I flip off the guy behind me or cut him off?
my age are working and not home because they are unable to work. Does that make me a loser? I don't think so. I do have a theory about smart phones in general and how they seem to foster rudeness, especially driving. I think they make us less dependent on others (I can call for help all by myself assuming I'm still conscious), so what does it matter if I flip off the guy behind me or cut him off?
2
You might look at the idea that we have entered, according to the cosmologists, the Age of Aquarius. Aquarius ruled by Uranus, is an egalitarian age, where it is more impersonal. People have more of an observer, more contacts through their work, much of which has a 'revolutionary' aspect to it.
I have Uranus next to my sun, which means that I have a lot of Uranus energy. I am a bit of a change agent, arebel if you like, and I love many people around me, not just one or two. Deep intimacy outside my wife is rare save a friend or two. I lose my creativity with too much emotional entanglement from too much intimacy spread around.
Read something about Aquarius and you might find some of what you are looking for with regard to the Millenials.
I have Uranus next to my sun, which means that I have a lot of Uranus energy. I am a bit of a change agent, arebel if you like, and I love many people around me, not just one or two. Deep intimacy outside my wife is rare save a friend or two. I lose my creativity with too much emotional entanglement from too much intimacy spread around.
Read something about Aquarius and you might find some of what you are looking for with regard to the Millenials.
2
I am finding Mr. Brooks' premise difficult to respond to adequately. On one hand, I read Mr. Brooks' columns each week on my laptop. I have the great pleasure of reading the comments, as they multiply, in "real time." This morning, my nephew and his wife gave birth to their second child and the photograph of this newest member of our family was celebrated in a spectacular fashion, with my deep appreciation to the virtual world. Are we more lonely? Perhaps, but along the way, we know we are more aware and engaged than ever before with all of "us." I believe I am a better friend, and hope this is true. Instead of my parents, years ago, having to remind me to "get off the phone," I call now in a thousand different ways.
2
Mr. Brooks:
Thanks for this column. I finally know, at long last, why people all around me
have their hands to their ears while strolling about. Once again you are ahead of the curve on an alarming development in our society that others have missed.
Thanks for this column. I finally know, at long last, why people all around me
have their hands to their ears while strolling about. Once again you are ahead of the curve on an alarming development in our society that others have missed.
1
My best memories and the ones that solidified my youthful friendships had distinctly physical components to them. The time we rode our bikes to Kennedy Airport, the keg party outside the dorm where we threw upon the bushes, the hilarious joke that made it hard for us to catch our breathe. Real connections are not informational. No one ever created a lasting memory with a friend on Facebook and no one ever will.
8
Mr. Brooks,
another though provoking piece. However, I think you have missed the causal relationship. It is not the technology that is causing social disengagement or loneliness; it is our failure to focus on the message rather than the medium.
I was born on the East Coast. raised in the Midwest and South, and have spent my adult life in Silicon Valley. Not surprisingly, I have a lot of family and friends that do not live “just around the corner” or even within a few hours drive. FaceTime or telephone (the technology that teens used for hours on end when I was young) are great, but a three hour lag from the east coast limits opportunities for synchronous communication. Asynchronous texts and FB posts increase the contact frequency with my siblings and childhood friends. Would it be better that I not engage with them but for the one or two times a year that I see them in person?
And why are three “full-disclosure” confidants better than two or even one plus a dozen or more “partial-disclosure” confidants—especially when that wider circle can include experts in any given field? Sure there are risks in “over-sharing” with strangers, but that has always been the case.
Focusing on the technology misses the point. If people are becoming more lonely, it is because we have not taught our children what it means to socially engage constructively. Apps add to our means of engagement, but how to engage meaningfully must be learned. That is where you should focus your attention.
another though provoking piece. However, I think you have missed the causal relationship. It is not the technology that is causing social disengagement or loneliness; it is our failure to focus on the message rather than the medium.
I was born on the East Coast. raised in the Midwest and South, and have spent my adult life in Silicon Valley. Not surprisingly, I have a lot of family and friends that do not live “just around the corner” or even within a few hours drive. FaceTime or telephone (the technology that teens used for hours on end when I was young) are great, but a three hour lag from the east coast limits opportunities for synchronous communication. Asynchronous texts and FB posts increase the contact frequency with my siblings and childhood friends. Would it be better that I not engage with them but for the one or two times a year that I see them in person?
And why are three “full-disclosure” confidants better than two or even one plus a dozen or more “partial-disclosure” confidants—especially when that wider circle can include experts in any given field? Sure there are risks in “over-sharing” with strangers, but that has always been the case.
Focusing on the technology misses the point. If people are becoming more lonely, it is because we have not taught our children what it means to socially engage constructively. Apps add to our means of engagement, but how to engage meaningfully must be learned. That is where you should focus your attention.
4
My experience is totally at odds with Mr. Brooks'. In face-to-face (so-called 'real life') relationships I cannot speak openly, honestly and deeply. I have to navigate minefields of religion, politics, family, and so on, knowing I am in deep trouble if I offend. (Isn't a lot of life like gays in the 50s? In the closet?) Online I have the freedom to be me. I have intense and very personal relationships with a large number of people who would clam up on me if we were stuck across a table or in a room together. The only limitation of online is that we cannot physically touch. That part I miss. Online takes me back to my college days (before I owned a car) and the incredible conversations I had while hitchhiking between western Pennsylavaia and my home in New Jersey. There's a lot to be said for Gesellschaft. Not so much for the straight-jacket of Gemeinschaft.
5
INFP and writer that I am, Facebook is a definite blessing. I can keep up with people I knew ages ago as well as those I maybe see twice a year. I don't have a smart phone just a tablet and a laptop. I only like close up and personal with a small number of people. And I don't like verbal small talk. I'd rather write than talk any day.
5
I had a boyfriend who lived out of town. His social interaction with me, when we couldn't be together physically, was instant messaging for perhaps only an hour in the evening, not always daily either. He said I could never call him on his cell phone--he reserved it only for family. When we did get together, he would spend another hour or so on his laptop PC checking Facebook messages and seeing what his friends were up to. Later on, after he prepared dinner, we would watch a video movie together--completely avoiding conversation again. Whenever we had disagreements, they came via instant messaging. BTW, I'm not one of his FB friends! I was never invited. So we broke up, via IM, too.
I see some value in Facebook for families that are apart geographically and friends who have moved or retired elsewhere. FB seems destined to be a tool of positive messages, but occasionally a brave soul will reveal she is battling an illness and hopefully keeping us posted of her recovery.
I see some value in Facebook for families that are apart geographically and friends who have moved or retired elsewhere. FB seems destined to be a tool of positive messages, but occasionally a brave soul will reveal she is battling an illness and hopefully keeping us posted of her recovery.
9
my wife and I just returned from a four week trip to our national parks, where we hiked every day. We first noticed, and then confirmed, that whenever we passed a non-millennial, there would be a friendly greeting, a question about our day etc.But millennials, to a person, just passed us by silently, head uncomfortably down, as if to say....this kind of interaction is too much intimacy for us.
12
Too long. Can you reduce to a text?
6
Friends are hard to find. The first thing I always look for is that crisp, telltale crease in their pants. When I see that, I know they have met minimum baseline to earn my friendship.
3
No, David. It's not the fault of the phones; people are using them to make up as best they can for a life of nearly constant work in environments of insecurity and mistrust. They are too busy treading water in the gig economy to have much time for friends.
It is part of the decline of the middle class and of much else. At the risk of sounding ungracious, I suggest that you ask yourself what political philosophy and what party most abetted this.
It is part of the decline of the middle class and of much else. At the risk of sounding ungracious, I suggest that you ask yourself what political philosophy and what party most abetted this.
13
Moderation in all things.....works for me.
4
You might prefer fat, dumb, and happy to lean and hungry men.
I still use a flip phone and hate texting; because of an uncontrolled seizure disorder caused by a TBI and a secondary head trauma, staying holed up at home is by preference. I'm still able to work part-time; the internet allows me to read newspapers around the country and continue with my passion in Brain Injury rehabilitation whereby I've set up search engines for various key words, find articles of interest and share each with Doctors, therapists, fellow survivors.
Not only TBI but other topics: low-income/first time home buying, disability rights, EEO.
Yeah, I have a Facebook account; the shine has work off; spend <15 minutes a day on there; just long enough to save a couple of funny memes and post one or two that's bound to offend and handful. Don't know, don't care. That's the beauty of sarcasm...
Not only TBI but other topics: low-income/first time home buying, disability rights, EEO.
Yeah, I have a Facebook account; the shine has work off; spend <15 minutes a day on there; just long enough to save a couple of funny memes and post one or two that's bound to offend and handful. Don't know, don't care. That's the beauty of sarcasm...
4
I have not found this true with any children or adults I come in contact with. They have lives, and friends, and yes, spend time sailing on the electronic seas... But their intimate lives are real and they have real friends, and family. I can't say, as a boomer, that there was anyone who wasn't seriously lonely, regularly, even with good friends. I do believe it's a condition of being human, and that our now possible connections with others via the internet, does nothing but keep us in contact with people we would otherwise lose.
7
Did people really spend a lot of time excavating and processing their internal states before the Internet existed? I don't remember that being a thing.
1
"Loneliness, far from being a rare and curious circumstance, is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man." ~ Thomas Wolfe, "You Can't Go Home Again"
Watching other people's lives is a way for people to vicariously live lives they never will. On Facebook, people think everyone else is vastly more fulfilled than they are. Pretense is everything. "Maybe if I can appear to have a wonderful life, if everyone thinks I have a wonderful life, my life can be wonderful." Today's culture amplifies this tremendously.
We live in a world of ubiquitous superficiality, instant gratification and entertainment, narcissism and competitiveness. Our world devalues intellectual depth, intimacy, spirituality, helpfulness, and spits on vulnerability. Maybe 'safe spaces' shouldn't shock us. When people aren't occupied, they're hollow. They don't know what to do with themselves. "Everyone looks happy. Maybe it's just me?" they think. Life is exteriorly oriented, when interiority is what counts.
A few close friends are worth a lot more than 100 acquaintances. Pick up a real book. Make a real friend. Everything seems perfect from far away, but I promise you, no one has a perfect life. And don't worry that you're missing something all the time; if you do, you'll miss something. We need things that nourish the soul, not just pass the time. We need real contact. People aren't objects or machines
Watching other people's lives is a way for people to vicariously live lives they never will. On Facebook, people think everyone else is vastly more fulfilled than they are. Pretense is everything. "Maybe if I can appear to have a wonderful life, if everyone thinks I have a wonderful life, my life can be wonderful." Today's culture amplifies this tremendously.
We live in a world of ubiquitous superficiality, instant gratification and entertainment, narcissism and competitiveness. Our world devalues intellectual depth, intimacy, spirituality, helpfulness, and spits on vulnerability. Maybe 'safe spaces' shouldn't shock us. When people aren't occupied, they're hollow. They don't know what to do with themselves. "Everyone looks happy. Maybe it's just me?" they think. Life is exteriorly oriented, when interiority is what counts.
A few close friends are worth a lot more than 100 acquaintances. Pick up a real book. Make a real friend. Everything seems perfect from far away, but I promise you, no one has a perfect life. And don't worry that you're missing something all the time; if you do, you'll miss something. We need things that nourish the soul, not just pass the time. We need real contact. People aren't objects or machines
4
This article is very true no matter who you are. You can argue that. “I'm not the type of person to have a thousand followers on twitter because I enjoy human contact and real friendships”. However, it is becoming harder and harder for people to converse and make contact without being forced to do so. In that sense if you want to converse and make friends with others it becomes harder because they don't know how to converse with you and unlikely maintain a healthy friendship after that. It’s sad to think that you can see someone everyday at work or school and never talk to them but one day you might get a follow or friend request over social media. What happens then? Are you guys friends? No, you aren't and this article shows that because you are just there to make them feel relevant. The article shows that we must be to scared to have awkward social interactions so we hide behind a virtual wall as a different person almost. I agree with this article all the way because you can see it everywhere you go.
1
I have found social median and the technological platforms it is communicated through to both help and hinder the true intimate relationships I hold with friends and family. I strongly believe that it is drastically important to take your face out of your phone every once in a while to enjoy the real world and people that surround you. That being said I see the ways that social media can further strengthen predetermined relationships. Social media, more than anything, bridges the gap of distance, for once people can communicate, share, and involve themselves in each others lives without having to be in the same city, state, or even country. This is a new opportunity to keep long distance relationships alive, well, and just as strong as the relationships we build face to face everyday.
1
I agree with author’s opinion. For my personal experience, I feel spend too many time for checking social media every day. By this way, sometime my real social network become little bit fragile. So, after I reads your article, I think it is the time to reduce use social media to connect with people, I will spend more time in the real social network.
But, the social media also play a necessary role for me. Because I’m an international student, I have to use those social media to connect my home country’s friends and family. Thus, I social media not just have negative, it still have positive part which has more proportion. But, your article is really good and interesting.
But, the social media also play a necessary role for me. Because I’m an international student, I have to use those social media to connect my home country’s friends and family. Thus, I social media not just have negative, it still have positive part which has more proportion. But, your article is really good and interesting.
1
As a millennial, we’re viewed by older generations as those who are engaged in their phones the most. While this is not untrue, the fact of the matter is that everyone in our current day and age are being swept up by technology. As the world changes around us, it’s adapt or die essentially. Those who are not one social media or those who have lesser electronics are perceived differently and treated as outcasts. However, there are still those in every generation who value the interaction that occurs when we’re unplugged. The statistics used in the first paragraph to accentuate the rift between peers has no direct correlation to loneliness, however the author is implying that it might. Said implication puts that thought into the reader’s mind, and thus slightly altering how they react to the information given. Personally, social media brings me closer to my friends. They’ve moved states away and we’re still able to remain as close as ever thanks to technology. The use of technology to avoid social interaction isn’t specific to any one age group. My grandparents spend their days glued to their apps, phones, and televisions. My personal opinion is that the problem is not within technology but within the person using the technology.
2
I agree with what the author is saying about how the advancements in technology and the continual creation of more and more social media apps such as; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat is causing many close relationships that used to consist of hanging out at each other's houses change into online relationships over the phone, computer, or Xbox. Nowadays kids would rather spend their free time surfing the web or playing computer games instead of getting outside and playing sports. Two year olds are now being taught how to use iphones and ipads because their parents allow them to use them at such a young age, already beating the mentality of isolation into their heads. You can't even go to any restaurant or fast food place without seeing almost every couple of group on their phones surfing social media instead of engaging in social conversation during their meal. What I have noticed the most about my soccer team as my first year at CSUP is that right when the game is over the players go into the locker room, and the first thing they do is check their phones for notifications instead of talking to each other about the game. I believe as we move forward in time, companies will continue to create new apps and new ways to communicate, further isolating each individual from each other causing our generation to turn into more or less robots.
2
I find all the hand wringing about social media interesting because in my research of the history of the telephone, you know, the old land-line telephone, I found that many cultural critics saw that new technology as evil, and that people would dramatically change, and that society would break apart, etc etc etc...I recall a picture I recently saw (on Facebook no less) that showed the interior of a commuter train with nearly every passenger (all men) with their head buried in a newspaper. The more things change...
3
Social media has now consumed America. People now walk through life with their eyes wide shut, blinded by this tiny screen called a cellphone. We are overtaken by this fear of missing out on the oh so interesting world that we claim to be somehow connected with through our phones. The idea of privacy no longer exist here in America. Today's people, adults and kids alike plaster their business all over Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. All in this competition to prove that our lives are more interesting than others. We rely on likes to prove we're popular or to make us feel good or wanted.
2
I agree with the author, while people are becoming more social through social media, they are becoming less social with real people and themselves. As college student who doesn’t have Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter, I see my friends on these types of social media all the time. Sometimes “hanging out” is just a bunch of friends sitting on a couch, looking at their phones the entire time, and it makes me feel uncomfortable, because that is just how people my age be social. When you meet someone new in this day and age, you usually get someway of talking to them online or through a screen, whether it be a username or phone number, and then that is usally how you interact for the rest of that relationship. I wish people enjoyed talking more.
4
This article is saying that because of our technology advancing, that we are slowly losing our ability to interact and be happy. I don’t believe this to be true. Yes technology does not always have the best effects on people but most effects are good. He states that we are using our phones to be happy. We check our phones when we are bored we immediately turn to our phones to give us happiness. This is not entirely true. The technology that we have now allows for people to communicate with friends in a different way that people have never seen. People go online and they can go to message someone that they may not have been able to talk to before. We have the opportunity to post anonymously so now we do not have to confide in someone and have the fear of them telling someone else or judging them. It give people a safe place to retreat.
2
FB has its place, just as leaving your card or rotating around Bath's pump room had its role in 19th c England. It's not intimacy. I've found intimate relationships via email with kindred spirits far away or in small group forums. Public venues, cyber or physical, aren't going to lead to intimacy, unless like Jordan Baker in the Great Gatsby, who loved big parties because they were so intimate, you can use them as a cover for private coded conversations. But I wonder how many people in 2016 think they are going to forge real friendships on FB? My guess is nobody.
1
We are witnessing a transformation of what is considered normal communication for socialization - eye contacts, intonation and pitches of one's response, nonverbal cues, or even touch. A famous neurologist once told me that empathy is what you feel once the person has left the room, because that's what the other person had also felt.
This is the limitation of digital media. The human civilization has been in existent for 1.5 million years. The earliest written language discovered was the Egyptian hieroglyphs in 3000 BC. Prior to that, it has been what's built in. When language isn't enough, we created poetry, arts, and music.
I said it's a transformation because I think the millennials will pay the price for all the benefits and adverse consequences. Socialization happens in stages, i.e. at ages 0-5, 5-15, 15-25, 25-40, 40-60, then 60+. Where I see the greatest damage is around 25-40. Yes, it is a tool with a great deal of efficiency - information, coordination, and organization. They can achieve a lot as individuals, but as a marriage, they often couldn't be more apart. This is more prevalent than you might think among the young folks, and they have no answers as to why. It's a greater lost to women, and possibly a factor of contemporary unhappiness.
Perhaps success in life does not require a marriage, being connected does nowadays. However, marriage requires happiness, and Dale Carnegie once said:
"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."
This is the limitation of digital media. The human civilization has been in existent for 1.5 million years. The earliest written language discovered was the Egyptian hieroglyphs in 3000 BC. Prior to that, it has been what's built in. When language isn't enough, we created poetry, arts, and music.
I said it's a transformation because I think the millennials will pay the price for all the benefits and adverse consequences. Socialization happens in stages, i.e. at ages 0-5, 5-15, 15-25, 25-40, 40-60, then 60+. Where I see the greatest damage is around 25-40. Yes, it is a tool with a great deal of efficiency - information, coordination, and organization. They can achieve a lot as individuals, but as a marriage, they often couldn't be more apart. This is more prevalent than you might think among the young folks, and they have no answers as to why. It's a greater lost to women, and possibly a factor of contemporary unhappiness.
Perhaps success in life does not require a marriage, being connected does nowadays. However, marriage requires happiness, and Dale Carnegie once said:
"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."
I like this but suspect there's more at work. Do people feel that the world is more competitive than in the past? If so, there's reason to avoid confiding in others, and even more to turn to technology for the small, aspirational solaces of the desperate.
2
Maybe more people are lonely because there are more people? My children have deep friendships because their parents do. Social media fits into the model we're already using.
4
Mr. Brooks,
I didn't realize how much social media and my cellular device in general has taken up a majority of my time. Up until recently, while I was observing a friend of mine, just dive into the "ocean" of social media, and really seem to get lost in it. When I had something to say to the person, they told me I acted in the same manner. Crazy that we don't realize how stupid we look staring at our "pocket gadgets" like some sort of zombie. Not only the fact that we spend a lot of time on our cell phones, but the fact that people need reassurance, and they think they could get that from social media. An instagram selfie, facebook post, or even a "fire" tweet are plenty of examples of people trying to uphold their ego. It's truly sad that people really define who they are by how many "likes" they get on a post. In the end, we are going to be a brainwashed generation that won't know what to do when actual interaction with one another occurs.
I didn't realize how much social media and my cellular device in general has taken up a majority of my time. Up until recently, while I was observing a friend of mine, just dive into the "ocean" of social media, and really seem to get lost in it. When I had something to say to the person, they told me I acted in the same manner. Crazy that we don't realize how stupid we look staring at our "pocket gadgets" like some sort of zombie. Not only the fact that we spend a lot of time on our cell phones, but the fact that people need reassurance, and they think they could get that from social media. An instagram selfie, facebook post, or even a "fire" tweet are plenty of examples of people trying to uphold their ego. It's truly sad that people really define who they are by how many "likes" they get on a post. In the end, we are going to be a brainwashed generation that won't know what to do when actual interaction with one another occurs.
1
I am an English 101 Professor at CSU-Pueblo in Colorado, and I think this article will be a great topic for us to respond to in class today. My students range in ages from 18-22, so I think they will be able to provide some great insight here...
As for me personally, I have felt and seen the "decline in number of high quality relationships" as well as the effect that technology addiction has had on our social interaction. With these two aspects of the article in mind, I would like to bring up an obvious and relatable experience. Lately, when I am out with my friends or family, whether it be at a restaurant or bar, I don't feel like a priority to anyone. How can I feel like my time is valued by those around me, if they are constantly checking their phones to see if there is something better to do or someone more interesting to talk to ("fear of missing out")? On the flip side, how can I show others I value their friendship or the quality our relationship if I am always doing the same? How about being out on a dinner date with a woman you are really trying to get to know, only to have that interrupted by frequent glances to the phone she is clutching under the dinner table like it's a lifeline?
C'mon girl- put the phone away, replace it with my hand, and let's really get to know each other...
As for me personally, I have felt and seen the "decline in number of high quality relationships" as well as the effect that technology addiction has had on our social interaction. With these two aspects of the article in mind, I would like to bring up an obvious and relatable experience. Lately, when I am out with my friends or family, whether it be at a restaurant or bar, I don't feel like a priority to anyone. How can I feel like my time is valued by those around me, if they are constantly checking their phones to see if there is something better to do or someone more interesting to talk to ("fear of missing out")? On the flip side, how can I show others I value their friendship or the quality our relationship if I am always doing the same? How about being out on a dinner date with a woman you are really trying to get to know, only to have that interrupted by frequent glances to the phone she is clutching under the dinner table like it's a lifeline?
C'mon girl- put the phone away, replace it with my hand, and let's really get to know each other...
1
From what I see it has nothing to do with technology. It is the people. American society is disintegrating and the Americans are going downhill with it. If you trust an American you will probably be disappointed. Most Americans have enlisted in the war of all against all.
It isn't hard to see why this should be happening. Everyone is frightened and stressed out. The government started it after 9/11. They decided they could control is by frightening us. In addition to that the economy is sinking inexorably. And of course there is the prospect of climate change. Past a certain point a person is overwhelmed by their worries. Extreme cases may run amok but most people just become selfish and defensive. Their main priority is survival, and to hell with everyone else.
It isn't hard to see why this should be happening. Everyone is frightened and stressed out. The government started it after 9/11. They decided they could control is by frightening us. In addition to that the economy is sinking inexorably. And of course there is the prospect of climate change. Past a certain point a person is overwhelmed by their worries. Extreme cases may run amok but most people just become selfish and defensive. Their main priority is survival, and to hell with everyone else.
3
We’re never going back. Smartphones, even more so than other devices because of their portability, are the perfect medium for the promotion of marketing products and ideas (good or bad). Producers of products and ideas in the past had some imperfect methods for anticipating consumer reception – surveys, focus groups, advertising. Now they have megadata. Make no mistake, you are constantly being defined as a potential consumer. The ubiquity of messaging maketh us to like down in a field of poppies, poppies, mesmerizing us by defining what to purchase, who and what to desire, how to think and feel. Introspection is so yesterday.
I got in under the net because I think my son was embarrassed by (sorry for?) his poor mother out and about with only a flip phone. He bade me meet him at the phone store, presented me with my cunning chartreuse 5c, and added me as an extra line to his account. I acquiesced only because it seemed to give him such pleasure. Then it began to give me pleasure. Like opium.
I’m not working right now. (That explains why I am able to post comments so frequently, lol.) But, I don’t know how anybody gets anything done in the workplace. I don’t know how babies develop language because their parents’ attention is on their cellphones. I don’t know how young men and women develop sexually through fumbling and discovery, because accessible pornography defines expectations and technique.
No FB for me, btw. I use texts for real life.
I got in under the net because I think my son was embarrassed by (sorry for?) his poor mother out and about with only a flip phone. He bade me meet him at the phone store, presented me with my cunning chartreuse 5c, and added me as an extra line to his account. I acquiesced only because it seemed to give him such pleasure. Then it began to give me pleasure. Like opium.
I’m not working right now. (That explains why I am able to post comments so frequently, lol.) But, I don’t know how anybody gets anything done in the workplace. I don’t know how babies develop language because their parents’ attention is on their cellphones. I don’t know how young men and women develop sexually through fumbling and discovery, because accessible pornography defines expectations and technique.
No FB for me, btw. I use texts for real life.
2
I think it's funny that so many commenters are simultaneously bemoaning the advent of social media and texting while waxing nostalgic for email and phone calls, both of which are very recent technological developments in communication that I'm sure were condemned when they appeared. (The horror! We'll start using the telephone instead of walking the the three miles to a neighbor's farm to visit! Oh no - email will destroy the beauty of long, meaningful, handwritten letters!) It has ever been thus, going all the way back to people getting upset over the development of writing itself because it ruined their communal story-telling experience and eliminated the need for memorizing epic poems and such. The invention of the printing press and the codex brought similar reactions. It'll be fine - someday, probably soon, we'll be nostalgic for Facebook and Twitter.
1
Let's see...we now have the ability to constantly monitor in real time pretty much everything that is happening in the world, as well as instantly access most of recorded history, wisdom from many cultures, and current scientific and contemporary thought. We can then decide which facts seem authoritative, relevant, and/or intriguing, and then decide what matters to us. We can then contribute to ongoing conversation on many levels, and get instant feedback.
Surely this requires a fundamental social change in how we perceive our place in the world: we live with a whole climate of opinion and information that asks us to dance.
As virtual life becomes increasingly an important part of how identity is formed and maintained, I suspect that we will need a generation or two to see how this all works out.
I suspect people are on the cusp of becoming a bit different than we have been.
Surely this requires a fundamental social change in how we perceive our place in the world: we live with a whole climate of opinion and information that asks us to dance.
As virtual life becomes increasingly an important part of how identity is formed and maintained, I suspect that we will need a generation or two to see how this all works out.
I suspect people are on the cusp of becoming a bit different than we have been.
I've never been really good at that friendship thing. In the olden days, when a dial phone and television represented state-of-the-art, I used to read: books, magazines, newspapers, cereal boxes, the labels on cans.
I remember spending a week with a family of my mother's friends. They had nothing to read and I vividly remembered how awful it seemed.
My reading satisfied my desire for stimulation. I had to make an effort for human connections. To tell the truth, sometimes the effort seemed too much. It still does.
My technological communications have included emails, which I loved because it allowed me to keep in touch with my children, grandchildren, siblings and my mother. Before she passed away, I heard my oldest grandson tell his friend that my grandma and my great-grandma have email and that he liked "talking" with us.
Today, I learned from Facebook that one of my second cousins just lost her son. Without those postings, I might not have known for months. I also know about her career and interests in ways that would not have been possible otherwise. I value that connection.
So, some of it's good and some of it is not so good. I do wonder about the impact of phone use on intellectual development and productivity at work. I also have concerns about that alt-right network that spreads its poison through technology.
Any addiction saps vitality and satisfaction. I think maybe we need to learn more how to control impulses and redirect them.
I remember spending a week with a family of my mother's friends. They had nothing to read and I vividly remembered how awful it seemed.
My reading satisfied my desire for stimulation. I had to make an effort for human connections. To tell the truth, sometimes the effort seemed too much. It still does.
My technological communications have included emails, which I loved because it allowed me to keep in touch with my children, grandchildren, siblings and my mother. Before she passed away, I heard my oldest grandson tell his friend that my grandma and my great-grandma have email and that he liked "talking" with us.
Today, I learned from Facebook that one of my second cousins just lost her son. Without those postings, I might not have known for months. I also know about her career and interests in ways that would not have been possible otherwise. I value that connection.
So, some of it's good and some of it is not so good. I do wonder about the impact of phone use on intellectual development and productivity at work. I also have concerns about that alt-right network that spreads its poison through technology.
Any addiction saps vitality and satisfaction. I think maybe we need to learn more how to control impulses and redirect them.
1
Genuine friendship of admiration, respect requires a rough equality--unlike admiration of teachers, professionals and many other care givers); and unlike "friendships of utility"--often needing inequality to get a boost up a ladder or out of a hole. There are also feel-good friendships of charm, wit, humor, sexual attraction (Aristotle).
They are all fragile--disappearing post admiration or equality, post boost, and post good feeling or attraction.
Often "you can't go home again" or befriend old friends. "Been there, done that (him or her)" kicks in. You can't step in the same river twice--if river is conceived as the water-substance; watercourses are another "matter"--not matter at all, but pure form.
Furthermore all friendships are compartmentalized--book friends need not be sex friends and they need not be sporting friends. Even good sex friends needn't be good parenting friends--a cause of conjugal discord. Common interest and talent across a spectrum is a rare thing--called "soul mates." And the wider the spectrum the rarer the mates.
And too often the interests are conceived like river-water (shared opinion, desire, taste) rather than watercourses or processes of evolving opinion, desire, taste, ideals.
Humans are themselves processes--you are the same human being at conception, childhood, adolescence, middle and old age. Parents and sibs sometimes enjoy requited care over the whole life cycle. Not many others. We make do with "snapshot" sharing.
They are all fragile--disappearing post admiration or equality, post boost, and post good feeling or attraction.
Often "you can't go home again" or befriend old friends. "Been there, done that (him or her)" kicks in. You can't step in the same river twice--if river is conceived as the water-substance; watercourses are another "matter"--not matter at all, but pure form.
Furthermore all friendships are compartmentalized--book friends need not be sex friends and they need not be sporting friends. Even good sex friends needn't be good parenting friends--a cause of conjugal discord. Common interest and talent across a spectrum is a rare thing--called "soul mates." And the wider the spectrum the rarer the mates.
And too often the interests are conceived like river-water (shared opinion, desire, taste) rather than watercourses or processes of evolving opinion, desire, taste, ideals.
Humans are themselves processes--you are the same human being at conception, childhood, adolescence, middle and old age. Parents and sibs sometimes enjoy requited care over the whole life cycle. Not many others. We make do with "snapshot" sharing.
1
Best analysis I've read yet of phone addiction! Very compelling reasons here elaborated for close, personal encounters, the kind we used to cultivate before the app-age. Mr. Brooks is most decidedly one of the most convincing latter-day philosophers!
2
It would be worthwhile to experiment by reduce social network use once in awhile and see if your relationships improve. This is not to just disconnect during dinner, but avoid constant checking for a week or two. I think it's easy to get drawn in and not realize how it affects your lives.
1
I will go with you David as far as agreeing that intimacy between people who have never set eyes on each other and hugged or kissed isn't the same as with people who have, BUT, many people on Facebook trace their friendships back to High School and earlier, and only have regular discourse because of social media. Some of my friends from life have relocated to diverse parts of the United States and I can now keep in touch with them on Facebook or through email or IM's. Adding another BUT, where you have never pressed the flesh of a Facebook friend you are missing out on real intimacy. i sometimes think that the only real choice for the old time thinkers among us it found in "Ulysses" by Tennyson.
Intimacy for the Idiot.
Mr. Brooks:
hmmmm
did you happen to check-back,
say to the mid-50s,
and search for then-contemporaneous columnists
who were perplexed to find so many people engaged
in the new-fangled 'television' and the portable 'transistor-radio'?
my goodness, Harold, people just are not speaking-with one another anymore!
not much of your column today is either reflective to other eras of change,
nor is there any attempt here to listen to the folks under 30-years of age.
perhaps there is a sense of some level of loneliness in your
inability to lock-in with those who are participating in the 21st century
communication gadgets.
on-the-other-hand,
it might be argued that the net benefits of all this gear is about as useful,
longer-term,
as the tulip-bulb-economy of the early 17th century.
'tis likely that our futures will lie somewhere in between.
two things seem most-apparent 'right-now':
a whole lotta folks are spending a whole lotta time and money on this stuff;
and you cannot-yet-comprehend the end-game or future mutations,
and are feeling lost, left-behind, and confused.
hoping that the therapy sessions,
solo or otherwise,
prove helpful at some level.
cheers!
Did the studies account for the ageing of the population? Only children have friends with whom they share everything. Adults, in a world that is always striving for status, where everything you do is constantly being monitored for a slip, not so much. Not even spouses can be much more than acquaintances. The best rule is to figure that everyone, including your spouse, is on the make, only interested in you for what they can get out of you. Because the vast majority of them--including your spouse--are.
Or, as the old saw in response to complaints about all the phony schemers and strivers in Hollywood--if you want a friend, get a dog. For adults, it's been true since long before the Facebook added another layer of facade for the strivers and schemers to exploit.
Or, as the old saw in response to complaints about all the phony schemers and strivers in Hollywood--if you want a friend, get a dog. For adults, it's been true since long before the Facebook added another layer of facade for the strivers and schemers to exploit.
1
There are some comments of Mr. Brooks of being out of step by writing of social issues completely devoid of his supporting the GOP.
First, writing on social issues is one of his primary responsibilities of his job.
Second, I believe Mr. Brooks is honest to the point that the GOP has no policy or platform values that support the enhancing and improvement for the common good.
There is practically a void in the GOP for this and nothing for Mr. Brooks to write about.
Unless he would wish to write of the common destruction the GOP has had on the common good of the American people.
First, writing on social issues is one of his primary responsibilities of his job.
Second, I believe Mr. Brooks is honest to the point that the GOP has no policy or platform values that support the enhancing and improvement for the common good.
There is practically a void in the GOP for this and nothing for Mr. Brooks to write about.
Unless he would wish to write of the common destruction the GOP has had on the common good of the American people.
2
Ahh, another delightful David Brooks fluff piece about the world stumbling uncomfortably (for him) into the future. So nice that none of his columns require factual support anymore, research time much better spent perfecting that solemn frowning nod of disapproval over things he doesn't use enough to understand beyond the talking points around the office.
Balance, baby, it has tremendous restorative properties. You want to know why people feel compelled to pull out their phones all the time? So do I. Yet after a few hundred empty words and disjointed anecdotes I'm no more informed, but heartily moralized. It seems to be the new tack of the right wing: squint, purse your lips, and add some gosh-darns to your soothing empty words about "saving america."
Thank goodness we have digital forums like this to commiserate, otherwise we'd be lonely AND gobsmacked. baby steps.
Balance, baby, it has tremendous restorative properties. You want to know why people feel compelled to pull out their phones all the time? So do I. Yet after a few hundred empty words and disjointed anecdotes I'm no more informed, but heartily moralized. It seems to be the new tack of the right wing: squint, purse your lips, and add some gosh-darns to your soothing empty words about "saving america."
Thank goodness we have digital forums like this to commiserate, otherwise we'd be lonely AND gobsmacked. baby steps.
3
I suspect that more than technology or social media, the toxic idea of treating oneself as a brand to develop and promote - as opposed to accepting one's one inherent humanity, including quirks and flaws - leads to an increased sense of loneliness and isolation. It might be good for business or career advancement, but shaping one's person to align with current market forces seems likely be quite damaging to how we perceive ourselves (and others).
3
It's interesting how people avoid phone conversations now. One almost expects the courtesy text to warn of the intrusive phone call. We expect time, we expect that warning so we can stage our better selves. Overall, Social media has given us time to set up the facade, prop up our reactions, project our lives after style-vetting. Perhaps what get's lost is the spontaneity of wit, the impromptu sense of humor, the real reaction seen on someone's face in conversation, or heard on the phone line. Conversely, texting in particular may embolden more confrontation, more real disclosure, more courage, given the removal of eye-to eye or voice contact. Maybe that is a good thing.
4
Brooks's point is excellent: Technology reduces social interaction, and relationships among people have become more impersonal. Some examples suffice.If u seek a college position, u apply on line and only if post is advertised.Starbucks only accepts applications on line.College room mates in the same room will e mail each other rather than talk.Walk into any h.s.classroom, and u will find students sitting at computers, rather than listening to the teacher explain a lesson using chalk and a blackboard.Breslin's anecdote re people in subway car and finding no one reading a newspaper is terrifyingly true. Remember when plain folk lined up at news stand 79th and First early Sat.evening for early edition of Daily News.Remember Joan Lundon's confession--and she was a newscaster--that she did not read newspapers. Miss the friendly NY Tel.repairman who made housecalls when ur phone did not work, and those old black phones as well.If you did a "sondage " at Yale Univ., asked students who Henri Peyre was, or Harvey Griswold or Kingman Brewster,u would get a look of puzzlement and of mild embarassment.As Vincent le Chauve," former OAS shooter whom I interviewed in a cafe in Juan les Pins in 1987,ruminated, "On ne peut pas faire marche arriere."One either keeps up with the new technology, or one becomes a relic."C'est ainsi."would be the fatalistic words of "le Chinois"(Salan) if he were here today.
The little shot of dopamine I get when a message appears on my phone reminds me of the feeling I had as a kid, waiting for the mailman. "Is there anything for me, Mom?"
Realizing how often I check my phone, I decided to use that mini-obsession for good: to break the habit of poor posture.
So I've instructed myself—whenever I check my phone—to correct my posture.
Realizing how often I check my phone, I decided to use that mini-obsession for good: to break the habit of poor posture.
So I've instructed myself—whenever I check my phone—to correct my posture.
3
I miss the days of lengthy conversation, before it was eroded by smartphone users issuing constant press-releases, as if every minute of the day is worthy of glorification. The amount of narcissism engendered by social media is breathtaking.
3
My wife's nose is continually attached to her phone. She has been assimilated.
4
I wonder how many regular NYT commenters are avoiding intimacy.
8
If you don’t have those few close people to tell everything to, then that’s your fault. It’s not the internet’s fault. You chose not to have that person to tell everything to, so then you can’t complain whenever you’re sad and say “I don’t have anyone to talk to” when you’re so mesmerized by the fact that someone just uploaded a story to Snapchat that you haven’t seen yet. Okay, so social media COULD lead to the fact that you don’t want to tell someone your thoughts. Teens nowadays can’t keep a secret to save their life. Someone else outside of the pair just HAS to know. So, if you don’t have a best friend due to the impact of social media and the ability for people to keep a secret, that’s still YOUR fault, YOU are still choosing to not have someone to talk to. Which is all fine and dandy, if you don't wanna share your secrets to someone you don't trust, that's fine, I get it, I have terrible trust issues, too. But if you clearly have someone that you know you can tell everything to, someone that doesn't make you feel lonely like the internet does, someone that keeps you away from the phone for a little while, someone that makes you happy and doesn't just satisfy you, then you got yourself a best friend.
1
“When we’re addicted to online life, every moment is fun and diverting, but the whole thing is profoundly unsatisfying” (Brooks). This line was ultimately a standout for me. Reading the article, I couldn’t stop thinking about my two cousins: one is 11 years old, and the other is 22. Both girls are attached to their online lives.
As an 11 year old, she is not aloud to have a Facebook or Snapchat. Nonetheless, her Andriod consists of many mobile games where she finds herself glued to her device. As she grew up in a new generation where technology is a huge thing, she lacked the outside time with her actual friends. As a result, she has grown to hate people because she finds them annoying. This is not normal for a 6th grader.
On the other hand, my 22 year-old cousin grew up with an outside lifestyle. She had friends, she went swimming a lot, and she had a decent childhood. Now, she has grown to love her laptop. She is always sitting in the front of her screen with her faced sealed to it. She will not get off of social media sites because she feels involved with her old friends. However, she now hates to go and meet new people. She refuses to go to bars or clubs to socialize. She now classifies herself as a hopeless romantic and outcast from society.
Overall, I feel the article did a great job in telling the truth about social media. It helps me understand the change I need to make when I grow up to raising my family.
As an 11 year old, she is not aloud to have a Facebook or Snapchat. Nonetheless, her Andriod consists of many mobile games where she finds herself glued to her device. As she grew up in a new generation where technology is a huge thing, she lacked the outside time with her actual friends. As a result, she has grown to hate people because she finds them annoying. This is not normal for a 6th grader.
On the other hand, my 22 year-old cousin grew up with an outside lifestyle. She had friends, she went swimming a lot, and she had a decent childhood. Now, she has grown to love her laptop. She is always sitting in the front of her screen with her faced sealed to it. She will not get off of social media sites because she feels involved with her old friends. However, she now hates to go and meet new people. She refuses to go to bars or clubs to socialize. She now classifies herself as a hopeless romantic and outcast from society.
Overall, I feel the article did a great job in telling the truth about social media. It helps me understand the change I need to make when I grow up to raising my family.
6
Instant gratification has become the only kind of gratification that counts anymore. Gone are the days of communicating without gratification that's instant.
There are many young people who will never have the experience of engaging in a seemingly ordinary conversation, which takes an unexpected and meaningful turn. Some of the most memorable and consequential exchanges I’ve ever had started out as nothing special. If I had had a smartphone to check, those conversations would have never developed.
And I would add… engaging in a meaningful conversation isn’t something we start out being good at. It takes practice. If you spend a lifetime living through your digital devices, you’ll only reinforce the attitude that non-digital exchanges have little to offer. But seriously, the real world may have some dull moments, but the exciting moments make it more than worthwhile.
There are many young people who will never have the experience of engaging in a seemingly ordinary conversation, which takes an unexpected and meaningful turn. Some of the most memorable and consequential exchanges I’ve ever had started out as nothing special. If I had had a smartphone to check, those conversations would have never developed.
And I would add… engaging in a meaningful conversation isn’t something we start out being good at. It takes practice. If you spend a lifetime living through your digital devices, you’ll only reinforce the attitude that non-digital exchanges have little to offer. But seriously, the real world may have some dull moments, but the exciting moments make it more than worthwhile.
26
It's not about the tools we use to communicate. We live globally, we move about, grandma does not live down the street anymore. I gave my 5 year old grand daughter an iPad and now I see her sweet face pop up in front of me almost every morning as I read the New York Times. That gets me by until the next physical visit.
3
And off course as all Brooks' comments conclude, it must be the fault of Obama or now Clinton.
1
I am an English 101 Professor at CSU-Pueblo in Colorado, and I think this is a great topic for my students to write about today. I think they will be able to provide some great insight, so I am encouraging them to post comments to this article later in class today...
As for me, I have personally felt and seen this "decline in the number of high-quality friendships" as well as the effect that technology has had on our social interaction. With both of these aspects in mind, I think the best example I can give is one that is obvious and relatable. Lately, when I am hanging out with friends and family, whether it be at a restaurant or bar, I don't feel like a priority to anyone. How can you feel like your time is valued by others around you, if they are constantly checking their phones to see if there is something better to do or someone more interesting to communicate with ("fear of missing out")? On the flip side, how can I show others I value them, if I am doing the same when they are trying to talk or connect with me? How about being out on a date with a woman you are really trying to get to know to only have that interaction interrupted by constant glances underneath the dinner table to a phone being clutched like it's a lifeline?
C'mon girl, take the phone out your hand, replace it with my hand, and let's really get to know one another...
As for me, I have personally felt and seen this "decline in the number of high-quality friendships" as well as the effect that technology has had on our social interaction. With both of these aspects in mind, I think the best example I can give is one that is obvious and relatable. Lately, when I am hanging out with friends and family, whether it be at a restaurant or bar, I don't feel like a priority to anyone. How can you feel like your time is valued by others around you, if they are constantly checking their phones to see if there is something better to do or someone more interesting to communicate with ("fear of missing out")? On the flip side, how can I show others I value them, if I am doing the same when they are trying to talk or connect with me? How about being out on a date with a woman you are really trying to get to know to only have that interaction interrupted by constant glances underneath the dinner table to a phone being clutched like it's a lifeline?
C'mon girl, take the phone out your hand, replace it with my hand, and let's really get to know one another...
3
Reflecting on Mr. Brooks’s thoughts and many of the comments, it is hard to fully accept the notion we are shaped by technological advance. Rather, how we view and use tools that evolve with time seem more a reflection on who we are.
As examples, firearms have historically been used as a way to get food as well as to promote national security in the hands of armed forces. They also are a means to inflict needless bodily harm. An automobile can be a mere conveyance, or it can be a symbol to its owner. Television and the Internet are pathways to disseminate important information and the arts. They can also transport users, who so choose, into an endless wilderness. Nuclear energy can be harnessed to society’s good or its destruction.
Surely technology’s impact on the zeitgeist in any historical period affects how we live. But the person on the smartphone may well be the one bending the arc of its impact on our lives. Not the other way around.
As examples, firearms have historically been used as a way to get food as well as to promote national security in the hands of armed forces. They also are a means to inflict needless bodily harm. An automobile can be a mere conveyance, or it can be a symbol to its owner. Television and the Internet are pathways to disseminate important information and the arts. They can also transport users, who so choose, into an endless wilderness. Nuclear energy can be harnessed to society’s good or its destruction.
Surely technology’s impact on the zeitgeist in any historical period affects how we live. But the person on the smartphone may well be the one bending the arc of its impact on our lives. Not the other way around.
1
First we lost the extended family and became nuclear families. Then we lost nuclear families and now we live alone. Technology is the only pushback to isolation. We carry our front porch and our extended family in our pockets. Lunch and supper are Thanksgiving every day. We talk about what we ate and make jokes about the day. Our good days and bad are shared and our community responds. Without social media I would talk to no one all day long. With social media I am never alone.
1
We didn't 'lose' our families, we made our choices and we abandoned them.
If any regret that decision, it might be better to try to repair the original damage than try to replace them with voices (however lively or attractive) from a little metal slab.
If any regret that decision, it might be better to try to repair the original damage than try to replace them with voices (however lively or attractive) from a little metal slab.
1
David Brooks laments, “In 1985, 10 percent of Americans said they had no one to fully confide in, but by the start of this century 25 percent of Americans said that.”
He then goes on to add, “All of this has left people wondering if technology is making us lonelier.”
Social media was never meant to be a confidante. Social media channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, etc., are tools that facilitate increased “public” interaction between groups of people. If I wanted to confide in somebody within my circle of trust, I’d still do that privately in person, “mano-a-mano.” So blaming social media for increased loneliness is an excuse – yes, we share way too much in public, but that’s no reason not to chat more intimately over a cup of coffee!
He then goes on to add, “All of this has left people wondering if technology is making us lonelier.”
Social media was never meant to be a confidante. Social media channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, etc., are tools that facilitate increased “public” interaction between groups of people. If I wanted to confide in somebody within my circle of trust, I’d still do that privately in person, “mano-a-mano.” So blaming social media for increased loneliness is an excuse – yes, we share way too much in public, but that’s no reason not to chat more intimately over a cup of coffee!
2
I don't have a cell phone or any of those hand-held devices. I don't have a computer at home. I use my computer at work for emailing & blogging. I don't have cable TV.
What I do have is a land-line phone at home so people can reach me there if they want or need to. I have free TV of which I watch very little except for interesting educational PBS shows & good movie classics. I read good books, physical books. I also have other things -- peace, privacy, and the luxury & joy of solitude when I want it.
What I do have is a land-line phone at home so people can reach me there if they want or need to. I have free TV of which I watch very little except for interesting educational PBS shows & good movie classics. I read good books, physical books. I also have other things -- peace, privacy, and the luxury & joy of solitude when I want it.
3
I formerly had at least three confidants, but two died. I am older, but then, the U.S. population is graying, is it not?
That might account for some falling off of close friendships.
That might account for some falling off of close friendships.
3
THE INTERNET Is a tool. What you do with it and how you use it is up to your personal needs and style. As a writer and researcher, I find it to be extremely useful, since I can get answers to any question using google, my instantaneous encyclopedia. When reading or writing and I come across a word I'm not sure of, I can get the meaning and etymology within a matter of seconds usually, without leaving the page where I'm writing. I explore the incomparable riches of classical music (mostly) on YouTube, discovering artists and music I'd never have known of otherwise. I am able to listen to historic performances that would be very difficult to locate. I can practice my languages by finding people to chat with in other countries. I've met people whom otherwise I never would have found and developed friendships. I am able to write voluminously and rapidly on the Internet, where I can publish my writing instantaneously. I can contact dear friends on the Internet far more easily than via phone since the messages are written. So all in all I'm more in touch with than without the Internet. I'm able to discuss intimate matters if I choose to do so.
2
As an introvert and loner, I love social media. It enables me to connect with people without having to connect, if that makes sense. I much prefer texting and typing to talking and "getting together". I would be 100% alone without the ability to connect online.
39
We live in a vacuous world. The gadgets and products which companies sell us are supposed to provide satisfaction, if not happiness.
Here's your first hint. They don't.
The "self" that these companies appeal to is your egoic mind.
This is a false self created by the mind. It fears death, lives in the past, and constantly harps on about how salvation lies in the future. The truth is it isn't. It's in every moment you live.
It's called creation, and is happening all around you all the time. Your mind - the voice in your head, wants no part of it. Compulsive thinking is why feel so alone.
The true self is within, and both knows and senses that we are all part of the creative force that is within and all around us.
Job 1? Quiet your mind. Use it only as a tool when you need to. Then see what happens.
Quieting the mind isn't easy, and it will resist your attempts to do that. That's the first key that you're on the right track. Use Tolle's techniques of focusing on your breathing and breathing only. Or try experiencing your sensory perceptions to the exclusion of all else. Feel your hands as they touch, your feet as you walk. If you can, simply listen and be aware of the silence within which creation happens.
The more you succeed in quieting the mind, the closer you'll be to the joy that being alive brings.
It's where miracles happen.
Here's your first hint. They don't.
The "self" that these companies appeal to is your egoic mind.
This is a false self created by the mind. It fears death, lives in the past, and constantly harps on about how salvation lies in the future. The truth is it isn't. It's in every moment you live.
It's called creation, and is happening all around you all the time. Your mind - the voice in your head, wants no part of it. Compulsive thinking is why feel so alone.
The true self is within, and both knows and senses that we are all part of the creative force that is within and all around us.
Job 1? Quiet your mind. Use it only as a tool when you need to. Then see what happens.
Quieting the mind isn't easy, and it will resist your attempts to do that. That's the first key that you're on the right track. Use Tolle's techniques of focusing on your breathing and breathing only. Or try experiencing your sensory perceptions to the exclusion of all else. Feel your hands as they touch, your feet as you walk. If you can, simply listen and be aware of the silence within which creation happens.
The more you succeed in quieting the mind, the closer you'll be to the joy that being alive brings.
It's where miracles happen.
2
I once was forced to point out to my eldest that she was "answering her messages before she even got them!"....she had to admit the near truth of it and re-orient her life accordingly. That was some ten years ago and the whole social media thing was "new". The same quip will not work with the grandchildren. It is the way of life. My youngest grandson is an extrovert; he has his iPhone, it's used to keep in touch with home/friends but he's mostly busy doing his thing (athletics). His older brother, however, is a more quiet, homebody type, more inclined to be alone playing a video game. When he got his first iPhone/facebook he actually became more engaged with the world, finding people interested in things he was...he even discovered people in his class, for instance, who were interested in cooking, bee keeping and astronomy...but because he was a quiet type he didn't find this out until he had facebook and could see things that his peers were sharing. Now he has two very close friends. So, it's had a positive affect on his life. I believe people need people, we are social by nature, and regardless of what technological gadget arrives we will always find ways to have meaningful human contact.
2
I am SO tired of Luddites, both educated and not! Online interactions have enriched my life in a myriad ways. I am envious of my own kids who have grown with the internet from day zero - I wish I had their experience. As a lonely (by choice) and introverted child, I would have loved to be able to be part of a virtual network as I am now, to have access to all human knowledge literally at my fingertips, to augment my imaginary travel with pictures of faraway places. Now I travel a lot for my job and without the smartphone my family life would have been impossible. It is the only way I keep in touch with my husband and kids who live on different continents. And who is to say that many superficial interactions are not preferable to one "deep" one, at least for some people? Many long-terms friendships and marriages ossify into a boring and predictable routine. Now I feel to be part of a globe-spanning, borderless community, connected to strangers in a way that is far superior to a parochial, small-town mentality Mr. Brooks is pining for.
Point 1.....Anyone making a comment here today is doing it on line. At this point there are 106 people engaged in discussions about loss of intimacy and the web. I probably do not know any of you but for a few minutes I am part of a flash community of thoughtful and interesting people. Not such a bad thing.
Point 2..... Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION TRILOGY. One of his communities in the series is a place where each individual is isolated from every other individual. Except for procreation. A good read on line or on tree ware.
Point 2..... Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION TRILOGY. One of his communities in the series is a place where each individual is isolated from every other individual. Except for procreation. A good read on line or on tree ware.
1
Last week at the Phoenix airport I witnessed a group of around twenty or thirty high school age girls all with matching sports jackets on. Siting on the floor in a group near the departure gate. Each one had a smart phone and intently staring into it. From time to time one of the girls would start giggling and show another girl something from her phone. Now I am the first to say that I get what is happening and also do not like what is happening. They were so focused on the world on their screens that the real world did not seem to matter or were oblivious to it. Someday there will be repetitive smartphone injury or psychosis. RSI or RSP which will be a relative of PTSD
4
Jenny Mann responds: I find it a curious phenomenon viewing groups of people in front of a natural event, say the pluming of Old Faithful in Yellowstone and they are not looking or seeing but capturing it on their phones. Not in the moment but sure to share. My husband and I were at a restaurant and I watched a young woman finger her phone to the exclusion of the young man seated next to her. I have sat in theatres where people get the "vibration" and must answer the phone. How wearisome, Jenny Mann
2
Does a person really need to be in the presence of another person's left elbow in order to have a legitimate contact with them?
Brains, David. It is our brains that do the connecting, the feeling. Not our body habitus.
Brains, David. It is our brains that do the connecting, the feeling. Not our body habitus.
2
I think it is important to put this in a context that this article represents. At least the way I see it.
Technology has broken the continuity of communities and allowed us to form new ones. Albeit, ones that lack the intimacy and protection that the former may have provided.
Technology is a constraint. Using the technology is like dealing with an old Testament God, lots of rules and very unforgiving. When using the technology there are none of the reciprocal interstices that occur when you are dealing with people "face to face". Technology gives the illusion of presence when in reality someone is really absent.
All experience is immediate and intimate. When you are using technology your experience is with that technology, not with anyone person. Recently, while in a park, I watched children playing. The parents there taking pictures with their cameras and it suddenly occurred to me that the parents were not experiencing their children at play but were experiencing the picture taking. The parents missed a whole lot because of that. The parents had experienced a moment that had no beginning and no end. That's the limitation that technology places on our use of it, no beginnings and no ends.
Technology has broken the continuity of communities and allowed us to form new ones. Albeit, ones that lack the intimacy and protection that the former may have provided.
Technology is a constraint. Using the technology is like dealing with an old Testament God, lots of rules and very unforgiving. When using the technology there are none of the reciprocal interstices that occur when you are dealing with people "face to face". Technology gives the illusion of presence when in reality someone is really absent.
All experience is immediate and intimate. When you are using technology your experience is with that technology, not with anyone person. Recently, while in a park, I watched children playing. The parents there taking pictures with their cameras and it suddenly occurred to me that the parents were not experiencing their children at play but were experiencing the picture taking. The parents missed a whole lot because of that. The parents had experienced a moment that had no beginning and no end. That's the limitation that technology places on our use of it, no beginnings and no ends.
1
I am 70 years old. I am amazed at how much I love my iPad and how easily it bacame part of my life. I use it to read my NYT subscription and other news, and I surf where the connections take me. I don't see the value of any of the social media, but I'll admit that I only tried Facebook. That seems to be a colossal waste of time. And I have resisted getting a cell phone. Yes, there have been a few times in the past decade or so when it would have been handy, but no times when it was life or death. And definitely no times that, in my mind, would compensate for infliction of public drivel cell phones impose on all of us.
1
Social media is the junk food of human interaction.
5
Hi.
It's called "comments" . I could have expanded on the remark, but rely instead on long time skimmers of D. Brooks' columns to get the point.
At one time, literal thinkers were thought to be both intellectually and emotionally deficient ( think Zero of Beetle Bailey fame). Now, thanks in large part to the rise in techno think and the lionizing of 'engineers' , folks utterly devoid of a sense of humor or irony have risen to the summit of the communication food chain.
Despite overwhelming odds, I will continue to carry on as best I can.
It's called "comments" . I could have expanded on the remark, but rely instead on long time skimmers of D. Brooks' columns to get the point.
At one time, literal thinkers were thought to be both intellectually and emotionally deficient ( think Zero of Beetle Bailey fame). Now, thanks in large part to the rise in techno think and the lionizing of 'engineers' , folks utterly devoid of a sense of humor or irony have risen to the summit of the communication food chain.
Despite overwhelming odds, I will continue to carry on as best I can.
And once again, David Brooks tells the kids to get of his lawn.
2
Such a judgmental article. I'm middle aged and work alone much of the time. Social media has enabled me to connect with friends and family I've been separated from by thousands of miles and for too many years. Social media also helps me strengthen new friendships in my community. It's simply a tool. Humans always seem to need to gather in the village square to gossip and relate. Social media in many ways has rebuilt a village square that modern life previously eviscerated, and I'm grateful for it. Do I nag my teenager to put her phone down? Of course!! And social media shouldn't replace intimacy - you would never strip down to your socks in the village square either! But to paint social media as all negative is a linear and dull position, and simply reveals Brooks as the Luddite many of us already suspected him to be...
26
A thoughtful column Mr. Brooks. It does seem to me that most of us are living the virtual reality of an electronic neighborhood with only guarded brief contact with our "neighbors". Instead of forming intimate relationships. we are now more isolated than ever.
3
A study shows "we" check our phones 221 times a day...Baylor students spend 10 hrs a day on their phones...these numbers, presented as fact in this column represent an exaggeration not a reflection on how "we" live our lives. Try it, check your phone every 4.3 minutes for 16 hrs. Spend 10 continuous hrs. on the phone. No time to make a sandwich, tie your shoes, take a shower, kiss your loved ones, breathe. There are the obsessed among us but they are not "we."
1
We are in Fahrenheit 451... from the omnipresent big screens interacting and telling us what to unthink to the disappearance of books in the family home (and elsewhere) Even the drones were displayed zapping people (in the great movie adaptation).
2
One more example of my feeling that, although I don't generally agree with his politics, Brooks continues to be the most interesting columnist writing in America today.
1
It's all in how you use it, of course. This year, my FB feed is overwhelmed by friends of the two major and one minor political stripes mostly shouting at and to each other about the Apocalypse coming November 9.
I can't help but think that if we were all face to face at a party, most of my friends and family would spend time finding areas of commonality, not emphasizing our differences. The general political tone would be vastly different, and our candidate choices would probably be superior in that world.
And yet - as others have noted, FB and brethren is also a useful tool for finding touchpoints with old friends and family. I'm grateful to have these connections, inferior though they may be. Something is better than nothing.
I can't help but think that if we were all face to face at a party, most of my friends and family would spend time finding areas of commonality, not emphasizing our differences. The general political tone would be vastly different, and our candidate choices would probably be superior in that world.
And yet - as others have noted, FB and brethren is also a useful tool for finding touchpoints with old friends and family. I'm grateful to have these connections, inferior though they may be. Something is better than nothing.
1
I have no phone, smart or otherwise. I can wait until I get home to check my e-mail. all these devices have an on/off button. use it, is my advice.
3
Modern culture? Material, removed and spectating. We evolved to live in small groups that ALL sang, danced, told stories, handcrafted art and tools, gathered and killed our own meat, taught our own children and grandchildren and lived with the earth. Our own species lived like this for most 95% of the last 200,000 yrs. Our own genus lived like this for 2 million yrs. Not to copy the past or give up all things modern, but we can learn much from the past.
2
I have seen people shopping in the grocery store engaged very emotional phone conversations and I always wondered why the person on the other end never asks, "Hey- Are you in the grocery store by any chance? Are you out of your mind?!?!"
6
Maybe. But whatever friendship is, it may be easier to find than it was before we could find friends on the internet. It is now much easier to find whole pods of folks who agree with you. What you are finding, David, may be the process of realizing as you grow older that friendship, wherever it is found, is usually fairly shallow. Our friends disappoint us. We tire of humoring their annoying tendencies, and wonder why we hang out with them at all. We remember the intensity of youthful friendships, and regret that we don't live near those people anymore. In fact, if we did, we might have long ago fought and moved on to new friends. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," may explain why distant internet friends are easier to put up with. :-) OK, maybe that's just me... and you.
1
This is the not only the new pandemic, it's the next phase of the so-called 'technological divide' -- it seems as though Smart phones have only succeeded in making us all less so, because they have reduced the art of real conversation to something that isn't done face to face anymore...even when the person you're chatting with is next door, or in the same room!
And the so-called "social media" has become increasingly less so.
Now it has mainly morphed into a way to bully and taunt others under the guise of anonymity, or worse, a cowardly way to get a point across without the discomfort of experiencing any kind of personal interaction.
There's a point where necessity crosses over into addiction, but that too is becoming ever more difficult to determine.
By being constantly connected, we have managed to become less so.
And the so-called "social media" has become increasingly less so.
Now it has mainly morphed into a way to bully and taunt others under the guise of anonymity, or worse, a cowardly way to get a point across without the discomfort of experiencing any kind of personal interaction.
There's a point where necessity crosses over into addiction, but that too is becoming ever more difficult to determine.
By being constantly connected, we have managed to become less so.
2
It may not be a question of an “avoidant” using social media to escape uncomfortable intimacy with two or three close friends. Social media may be a substitute for friends who do not exist.
Or, it may simply be a matter of adjustment by everyone to the relative newness of social media in our society.
Some of us who are much older grabbed onto social media – Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin – very early out of curiosity and, then, stopped using these tools soon afterward. We stopped usage largely for privacy concerns. There was no “heroism” in fighting an addiction, because the addiction never existed.
The fact that younger people are seemingly oblivious to maintaining any degree of privacy is a source of puzzlement and concern to those of us a generation (or two) older.
The evidence, however, seems skimpy that the young users confuse the shallow interaction of social media with the value of having a few good friends.
If there are some people out there who are lonely – to use an old-fashioned term – and social media provides comfort, why shame them into stopping?
Or, it may simply be a matter of adjustment by everyone to the relative newness of social media in our society.
Some of us who are much older grabbed onto social media – Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin – very early out of curiosity and, then, stopped using these tools soon afterward. We stopped usage largely for privacy concerns. There was no “heroism” in fighting an addiction, because the addiction never existed.
The fact that younger people are seemingly oblivious to maintaining any degree of privacy is a source of puzzlement and concern to those of us a generation (or two) older.
The evidence, however, seems skimpy that the young users confuse the shallow interaction of social media with the value of having a few good friends.
If there are some people out there who are lonely – to use an old-fashioned term – and social media provides comfort, why shame them into stopping?
1
Interesting and undoubtedly true, but some people aren't really comfortable revealing everything, even to her or his closest confidante. That doesn't mean friends aren't extremely important, just that--gasp--privacy matters to some. Added to that is the obsessiveness over "success." How can one nurture friendships and at the same time engage in cutthroat business practices? Look no farther than Donald Trump, who apparently has no friends whatsoever.
1
I gave up my Facebook account many years ago. When my new novel is published I will reopen it - for it's only value is in getting the word out. Nothing more. I know of one woman who routinely posts pictures of homes not her own, saying that she recently purchased the home, and aren't we jealous? As one Chinese philosopher said (I forget who), the greatest sin is inspiring envy in others. Amen.
5
I think this is one reason why live theater and music are only more important to society. You have to shut your phone off and actually look at and listen to live human beings actually doing something.
7
My son who is in musical theatre, listens to opera during his free time, learning the notes, learning the lines, thanks to his smart phone.
1
why not shut everything olff, stay home and think
1
I love music but have never understood going to the symphony to "watch" music. Isn't it really like staring at a smartphone screen....without the beautiful sounds?
I was late to the world of www. and had no doubt before I arrived that I would be the King of the Luddites - would never have a cell phone, would never start a computer, would never surf the web.
Than I needed technology to communicate with a peer group - and it was all fine. Learned a bit of this, a bit of that, and every once in a while, a friend or neighbor calls, asking for digital assistance.
I refused to join Facebook, I seldom venture outside the offerings of the NYT or my local paper. I love iTunes. Every day, at least once, I say, "The phone is not an obligation."
Here is what I see: Every other car has a driver with his or her head looking down at their phone screen. Nearly every consumer in a place of business is walking with their head down, looking at their phone screen.
Worse than intimacy avoided, I believe that we are cultivating a crop of folks with stunted intimacy, and incomplete egos. We check our phones so often, I believe, to believe we matter, and that we are loved.
We shouldn't need a chunk of technology to tell us that.
Than I needed technology to communicate with a peer group - and it was all fine. Learned a bit of this, a bit of that, and every once in a while, a friend or neighbor calls, asking for digital assistance.
I refused to join Facebook, I seldom venture outside the offerings of the NYT or my local paper. I love iTunes. Every day, at least once, I say, "The phone is not an obligation."
Here is what I see: Every other car has a driver with his or her head looking down at their phone screen. Nearly every consumer in a place of business is walking with their head down, looking at their phone screen.
Worse than intimacy avoided, I believe that we are cultivating a crop of folks with stunted intimacy, and incomplete egos. We check our phones so often, I believe, to believe we matter, and that we are loved.
We shouldn't need a chunk of technology to tell us that.
7
Mr. Brooks seems mystified by our world in which people use social media to coalesce in dynamic ways. Even if Mr. Trump and BLM can sometimes be off-base in their respective uses, deprecating social media users as "shallow" by using media that favor spare, witty, share-able insights suggests that Mr. Brooks continues to struggle with modernity. As to more intimate friendships, electronic links have helped me maintain a still-vital friendship with my college roommate of 38 years ago. We live 1000+ miles apart.
1
I live in a very small town where most people seem satisfied with a face to face version of social media contact. Shallow chance contacts in shops or on the street replace real time spent in personal conversation.
I believe that superficial encounters, whether online or in person, are a product of a cultural shift toward the idea of "something for nothing." We've hollowed out our economy to get cheap, unsatisfying toy goods that first put our neighbors out of work, and finally (to our astonishment) put us in the unemployment line with them.
A preference for superficial toy friendships is much the same thing--accepting a hollowed out version to avoid paying the price of authenticity--which in the case of friendship, may be time, empathy, or other sacrifices of selfishness.
Feels good at the time. But as the proverb goes, "Take what you want and pay for it."
I believe that superficial encounters, whether online or in person, are a product of a cultural shift toward the idea of "something for nothing." We've hollowed out our economy to get cheap, unsatisfying toy goods that first put our neighbors out of work, and finally (to our astonishment) put us in the unemployment line with them.
A preference for superficial toy friendships is much the same thing--accepting a hollowed out version to avoid paying the price of authenticity--which in the case of friendship, may be time, empathy, or other sacrifices of selfishness.
Feels good at the time. But as the proverb goes, "Take what you want and pay for it."
1
Often after reading an opinion article I go on line to view other readers comments. Not sure if this is considered social media, but it enables an unfiltered view of the subject and thoughts put forward by the writer and shared by the numerous readers. I think this is an excellent exercise. Kind of like discussing a written piece in a classroom. The author puts forward the thought for discussion.
Many of Mr. Brook's columns generate supporting and opposing views. They serve a broader contribution as thought provoking.
Many of Mr. Brook's columns generate supporting and opposing views. They serve a broader contribution as thought provoking.
The "I and Thou" of Martin Buber is no less important today than in the Third Reich. The more we are isolated in monologue and not connected with dialog, the weaker we become as a neighborhood, a community, a nation, a world. Human isolation is a willful choice we make, and it puts us in real peril at all levels.
2
Living in Pittsburgh most of my life I have noticed for the past 20 yrs that couples holding hands has for all practical purposes been driven down to below 5% of total population.
Born in 1949 it was common for a much, much higher % of population to hold hands, all age groups. My peers and myself gained a comfort of intimacy and a sense of fitting into the grand scheme that our lives were developing into a greater sense of meaning through the intimacy of immersion in a loving relationship.
Now, walking through the university district of Oakland in Pittsburgh I consider myself fortunate to see one couple a week holding hands.
I believe there are many causes for this dramatic change of not expressing intimacy in public and the denial of the couple to feel the pleasure and contentment that arises from holding hands. But, perhaps that is the main problem. They no longer feel a sense of comfort from this and in some manner experience dis-ease doing it.
Born in 1949 it was common for a much, much higher % of population to hold hands, all age groups. My peers and myself gained a comfort of intimacy and a sense of fitting into the grand scheme that our lives were developing into a greater sense of meaning through the intimacy of immersion in a loving relationship.
Now, walking through the university district of Oakland in Pittsburgh I consider myself fortunate to see one couple a week holding hands.
I believe there are many causes for this dramatic change of not expressing intimacy in public and the denial of the couple to feel the pleasure and contentment that arises from holding hands. But, perhaps that is the main problem. They no longer feel a sense of comfort from this and in some manner experience dis-ease doing it.
1
Neuroscience, attachment theory, advancements in mind-body understanding all point to the importance of eye to eye face to face contact, and touch. This is what neurologically wires us to be human. There are also extensive studies that show this lack of body to body eye to eye contact reduces our capacity for empathy. So when you say "the best research has suggested that no, technology and social media are not making us lonelier," I gotta wonder what you're talking about. We use a different brain wavelength when we text or surf (hence why driving while texting is so dangerous). It's not the same wavelength as being here now. And being here now is where relationship happens. Social media can enhance already existing relationships, it can also transform them into something meaningless - it depends on how we use it. Addiction doesn't count.
1
People need the release of their phones to get past the corruption of American society that lets the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. People are willing to spend what little hard earned money they have on a nice phone, because it is a form of entertainment that they can take with them to avoid the lunacy of their immediate situation.
1
Mr. Brooks is now substituting soft-psych book reviews and social commentary for his formerly Republican political views. Is this a career change, or just being weird again?
I know I am only peripherally addressing Brooks's column, but after 12 years teaching high school English in a county that bills itself as exemplary, this will be my last year in large part due to phones and the internet culture. Every year, my advanced (IB) and on-level students come to school knowing less than the previous year’s students and caring less about it. They have externalized everything, skipping hard work for the easy, half-correct answer on their phones, oblivious to the implications of having missed crucial building blocks. (Yet off to college they go!) Like the absurdity of allowing 9 year-olds to drive because, Hey, why not?, adults shirk their role as leaders, lazily and unthinkingly giving children (key word, that) smart phones - the world and everything that’s in it, without having asked/prepared/expected them to fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds’ worth of distance run. The result is children with clamoring ids who mature at a worryingly slow rate, and are not only ill-prepared for a career, they are poised to be shallow and uninteresting adults, doomed to fail when the universe even gently says, “No.”
2
I have to wonder if part of the change to the survey has to do with changing interpretations of the phrase, "people with whom they could share everything."
Do people ever really share EVERYTHING with one person? Don't we all have some level of secrets, some level of emotions and thoughts that we necessarily have to hold back, even from our most loved companions?
In the past, I suspect that American culture simply didn't acknowledge the secret dimensions of our mental life. Social pressure to conform was greater back then, so maybe the threshold for "confidant" was lower. Were people sharing things like regrets about marrying early (as was more common), or being gay, or questioning their family's religion? Things like that used to be so taboo that maybe they didn't even register as "secrets" back then - they just weren't acknowledged at all.
Maybe we've just become more aware of the fact that, as human beings with a rich world of internal thoughts, some of which can't be shared for practical reasons, there will always be some level of solitude to our existence.
"Solitude is impracticable, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other. " - Emerson
Do people ever really share EVERYTHING with one person? Don't we all have some level of secrets, some level of emotions and thoughts that we necessarily have to hold back, even from our most loved companions?
In the past, I suspect that American culture simply didn't acknowledge the secret dimensions of our mental life. Social pressure to conform was greater back then, so maybe the threshold for "confidant" was lower. Were people sharing things like regrets about marrying early (as was more common), or being gay, or questioning their family's religion? Things like that used to be so taboo that maybe they didn't even register as "secrets" back then - they just weren't acknowledged at all.
Maybe we've just become more aware of the fact that, as human beings with a rich world of internal thoughts, some of which can't be shared for practical reasons, there will always be some level of solitude to our existence.
"Solitude is impracticable, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other. " - Emerson
1
Having grown up in the compartmentalized 50-60s I appreciate the wide-open nature of the net. Ideas and people kids would have been 'protected from' are out there for all to see. Society has 'loosened up' to the point where its routine to be a child of divorce or to have gay parents. Transsexualism is a major theme. Best friends or political partners may become hostile enemies. Esteemed leaders are caught with their pants down. So could the information glut have a bearing on the depth of feeling people allow themselves with close friends? After all, your spouse, bff, even family members may one day take less kindly to you. Holding on to our secrets can be a way of guarding our reputation.
My solution? I've found two things that work to keep me actually engaged with those around me:
Limit Facebook to one hour (total) per week.
Never EVER 'tweet' anything.
Limit Facebook to one hour (total) per week.
Never EVER 'tweet' anything.
1
I have 3 Dearest of Friends (DF's).
One for a solid 50 years; one, a newbie, for 8 years; and then there's the other one who is even more disconnected than I am.
We talk about every day, usually when he is fixing breakfast. His phone is on the kicthen counter, right beside his woodstove, so he can cook while we talk.
Yes, it has a rotary dial. No tv. Hell of a stereo system, though, and he can crank it full blast. The squirrels never complain. He's been my friend for 32 years. We start every conversation on my landline with a cheerie, "Hello, Mr. Poindexter!"
He has no facebook. (I do but I lost it, haven't a clue where it is.) He has no laptop. There is no app for our friendship. When we emote, we do so the old-fashioned way: we howl, bellow and sneer. And then we laugh.
He thinks this country has gone mad. He thinks Trump is mad. He sees cable about once a month and caught the debate of Clinton/Trump. He now thinks that this whole country is mad. I don't disabuse him of that notion.
You all go wear yourselves numb and chip away at your common sense and sense of commonality. I suspect that there are millions like me who are valuing their simple pleasures, grateful for a handful of actual friends.
.... "Montaigne"?
Wasn't he the original one who said, "All we have to fear is fear itself"?
Have a nice day, David.
No "scary revelations" here.
One for a solid 50 years; one, a newbie, for 8 years; and then there's the other one who is even more disconnected than I am.
We talk about every day, usually when he is fixing breakfast. His phone is on the kicthen counter, right beside his woodstove, so he can cook while we talk.
Yes, it has a rotary dial. No tv. Hell of a stereo system, though, and he can crank it full blast. The squirrels never complain. He's been my friend for 32 years. We start every conversation on my landline with a cheerie, "Hello, Mr. Poindexter!"
He has no facebook. (I do but I lost it, haven't a clue where it is.) He has no laptop. There is no app for our friendship. When we emote, we do so the old-fashioned way: we howl, bellow and sneer. And then we laugh.
He thinks this country has gone mad. He thinks Trump is mad. He sees cable about once a month and caught the debate of Clinton/Trump. He now thinks that this whole country is mad. I don't disabuse him of that notion.
You all go wear yourselves numb and chip away at your common sense and sense of commonality. I suspect that there are millions like me who are valuing their simple pleasures, grateful for a handful of actual friends.
.... "Montaigne"?
Wasn't he the original one who said, "All we have to fear is fear itself"?
Have a nice day, David.
No "scary revelations" here.
2
When an acquaintance criticized one of my close friends for not having a lot of friends, I took umbrage for many of the same reasons David mentions in this thoughtful essay. My friend has deep relationships whereas this other woman has many Facebook-type friends and broadcasts her life over social media.
I confess to keeping in touch via e-mail and relying on Facebook for others, but invest a lot of time in holding my old friends close.
I confess to keeping in touch via e-mail and relying on Facebook for others, but invest a lot of time in holding my old friends close.
The way people ignore those around them so they can use smartphones is disturbing. This seems to go way beyond exchanging one social platform for another.
1
I would rather talk to someone face to face for 15 minutes than spend an hour on the phone with them. I would like to have family holiday dinners with everyone's phone turned off (including the 10 yr. olds) and perhaps even put them in a safe or lock box for the duration of the gathering. My, oh my, what would that lead to? Actual interaction among the generations, laughter, stories of old Uncle Albert (who was quite a character) or Grandma Mary who found no need to wear panties after the age of 90 (though of course she still wore her dresses and aprons)? Or would everyone sit on the edge of their seats, on pins and needles and becoming angrier by the moment because their "real" selves have been locked away temporarily and who knows what they might be missing, perhaps even a text from that cute boy 17 yr. old Gracie has been dating, dumping her without even having to talk to her, let alone face her! And that kind of behavior goes on with all ages, not just teenagers. As far as other social media like FB, I believe it leads to much laziness and an excuse not to have to think for oneself.....just go look for a link somewhere that can be posted to explain where one stands on certain issues. On the other hand, there is no such thing as standing still. There is progression and there is regression.....no in between. So on we go....I just wonder WHERE we are going.
2
As the poster in the third grade classroom says," to make a friend, you have to be a friend." My phone is a tool. But a nice tool; like some of my friends.
1
The good news for introverts is that a casual scanning of a facebook page justifies all those years of avoiding contact with individuals whose main concerns are dogs, cruises, and religion.
3
Curious how for quite a while it looked like the future was trending toward the wall-filling TVs of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and of course it still is. But, completely unanticipated was the immersion in the microscreen's microexperience and microtimeslices and the ensuing fractionation of experience. 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky' superceded by 'I offer no apology while I break off from you to check my phone'.
I found it interesting that movie version of 451 which had the main story of officers burning books also featured the real threat to books in our century: interactive, omnipresent video shows.
I am the early user of electronic mail - late 1970s. Being a computer technologist of early eighties I worked many of the projects that ultimately created the modern multimedia life of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram... But I judged many of these technologies as intrusion on my life - I never registered on many of those services. I use email, apps, YouTube and texting and have a very enriched life because whole world knowledge and events are in my reach. At the same time, I am not controlled by them - I enjoy reading books from my local library. Technology creates tools and our judgement of selection determines wheather we are using the right tools for our life.
1
As usual, Brooks is the last one to notice the obvious.
1
America has become a boring, gray-touches-gray environment. I don't know my neighbors except for a twice-a-year "Hi Bruce, what's cooking" or the mailman every day dumping garbage in and I then dumping garbage out - the GIGO sprit alive and well. Communications are now from machine to machine pretending to be humans from yester-year.
I love sitting in an airplane taking off from JFK on its way to Asia or Scotland and seeing real life again. America has built a box for itself that is getting smaller and smaller - slow death actually.
I love sitting in an airplane taking off from JFK on its way to Asia or Scotland and seeing real life again. America has built a box for itself that is getting smaller and smaller - slow death actually.
There's nothing in what Mr. Brooks says about social media that couldn't have been said about, say, the invention of the printing press, of the electric light bulb or about radio or television. The only difference is that in the early 21st century it's fashionable to attribute our undesirable behavior to neurotransmitters rather than to Satan, to addiction rather than to moral failings.
I submit that friends, like other types of scarce and valuable resources, are and always have been unequally distributed among the population. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence where someone you know seems to be relishing deep human connections with cherished friends. "We" (as Mr. Brooks is wont to say) have always bought into the trope that one can judge another by the quality of her friends, and it makes us deeply uncomfortable with the motley assortment of people in our own lives.
What has not changed since the printed page took us away from the blissful meditative state of putting ink on parchment is that you can't be friends with others unless you are first a friend to yourself.
I submit that friends, like other types of scarce and valuable resources, are and always have been unequally distributed among the population. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence where someone you know seems to be relishing deep human connections with cherished friends. "We" (as Mr. Brooks is wont to say) have always bought into the trope that one can judge another by the quality of her friends, and it makes us deeply uncomfortable with the motley assortment of people in our own lives.
What has not changed since the printed page took us away from the blissful meditative state of putting ink on parchment is that you can't be friends with others unless you are first a friend to yourself.
In addition to the avoidance of human intimacy is the revelation of individual triviality. I gave social media a chance and learned from family members what kind of donuts they dunked in their coffee. I gave it up.
It most certainly is a form of addiction. It's increasingly important to unplug. I leave my phone in the car during the work day; people can call my work phone if they have an emergency. Checking e-mail no more than 3 times per day and turning off the alert function are other important productivity tips. Social media is almost entirely time wasted.
1
Writers like Henry Miller & Norman Mailer told us a long time ago about the dangers to our souls & spirits caused by technology. Mailer was particularly virulent over what plastic did to our human nature. And now we have the Great Garbage Patch spinning in the Pacific, a vast dumping grounds of tons on tons of plastic & more pouring in. Miller titled a book about crossing America "The Air-Conditioned Nightmare." Now, at the recent rollout for iPhone 7, audiences applauded the newest improvement in a technological gadget that really didn't need improvement. Think on it, the absurdity of clapping one's hands for a lifeless gadget! Like a leech Technology has sucked the hot red blood out of our hearts and souls nearly using up most of Nature to do it. We should be screaming not applauding.
2
Mr. Brooks could have just as easily been excoriating society almost six centuries ago when moveable type first transformed human interactions from a system of oral traditions where most people, illiterate as they were, gathered together daily to exchange information and pleasantries by word of mouth alone, to a brave new world where many retreated into the isolation of those infernal books and rags, ultimately to be referred to as newspapers.
Then, as now, conservatives raged against a societal transformation that undermined their orthodox power, often under the guise preserving a supposedly eroding civil society.
Then, as now, conservatives raged against a societal transformation that undermined their orthodox power, often under the guise preserving a supposedly eroding civil society.
4
Excellent column, David.
There's an xkcd comic where several people in a subway car silently share the same thought bubble:
"Look at these people. Glassy-eyed automatons going about their daily lives, never stopping to look around and think! I'm the only conscious human in a world of sheep."
(https://xkcd.com/610/)
In that comic, nobody is on their phones. Now you would be hard-pressed to find people who aren't. Smartphones have turned the Internet on its head. We used to think we are saying to the world what we are doing, what we are thinking, what we are feeling.
Now it's backwards. News tells us what we should think about. Facebook and Twitter tell us what we should care about. Forums like Reddit and 4chan train us like dogs to become elated or enraged at the whim of every post that we ravenously gobble down because no amount of information will ever be enough to make us put down the phone and experience the slow and boring world again. Hashtags determine our mood, not the other way around.
Mr Robot probably put it best:
"Terry Colby's arrest is on everyone's mind. Screen. Might as well be the same thing nowadays."
There's an xkcd comic where several people in a subway car silently share the same thought bubble:
"Look at these people. Glassy-eyed automatons going about their daily lives, never stopping to look around and think! I'm the only conscious human in a world of sheep."
(https://xkcd.com/610/)
In that comic, nobody is on their phones. Now you would be hard-pressed to find people who aren't. Smartphones have turned the Internet on its head. We used to think we are saying to the world what we are doing, what we are thinking, what we are feeling.
Now it's backwards. News tells us what we should think about. Facebook and Twitter tell us what we should care about. Forums like Reddit and 4chan train us like dogs to become elated or enraged at the whim of every post that we ravenously gobble down because no amount of information will ever be enough to make us put down the phone and experience the slow and boring world again. Hashtags determine our mood, not the other way around.
Mr Robot probably put it best:
"Terry Colby's arrest is on everyone's mind. Screen. Might as well be the same thing nowadays."
You blame technology for vapidity, but it is a tool. And, vapid interpersonal relationships have been with us since the dawn of times. It's a childish instinct to blame the new fad for it.
The smartphones and technology bemoaned in this piece let me maintain a close relationship with my 6 year old niece even though my career has taken me hundreds of miles away. And, I wouldn't trade that for the world.
I also think that for digital natives, like my niece and to some extent myself, the divide that lives at the heart of this frankly kind of silly opinion piece simply doesn't exist. We use these tools to form deep relationships. Some of them are preexisting -- a way to bridge the miles. But, some of my deep relationships have been formed entirely online.
It's a poor worker who blames their tools ...
The smartphones and technology bemoaned in this piece let me maintain a close relationship with my 6 year old niece even though my career has taken me hundreds of miles away. And, I wouldn't trade that for the world.
I also think that for digital natives, like my niece and to some extent myself, the divide that lives at the heart of this frankly kind of silly opinion piece simply doesn't exist. We use these tools to form deep relationships. Some of them are preexisting -- a way to bridge the miles. But, some of my deep relationships have been formed entirely online.
It's a poor worker who blames their tools ...
As a clinical psychologist and parent of a 17 year old, I am very concerned about how technology is impacting relationships. For example, teens don't talk- they text, often in group chats. This type of interaction has lead to some disastrous outcomes as the nuance of the issue at hand is misunderstood and friendships are frayed and broken. Every generation must deal with and adjust to changes brought on by technological advances, however, the speed and magnitude of today's technological changes is something we have never before witnessed. New technologies are implemented before we understand their ramifications. I worry what human interaction will be reduced to in the near and distant future.
2
I dropped off of Facebook and I have a primitive flip phone. Life is good!
3
So Mister Brooks this is what you are reduced to. Mulling over the drawbacks of social media and reminiscing about the old days. I have noticed that with the ascent of Trump, your writing has become melancholy. I suppose, after you realized that the GOP had lost its collective mind, you would turn to inward reflection and thus you have turned out a number of these columns filled with emotional meanderings. Your last good column was published months ago when you finally leveled you best criticism about Trump and the moral depravity of the GOP leaders.
I guess you have given up the fight (thank God) for the soul of the GOP and now (maybe unintentionally) are alienating millennials.
The millennials will figure out what is important and what is not as time goes by. Just like Baby Boomers and Generation Xs did.
My suggestion for future columns. Make them (and yourself) more relevant by supporting Hillary Clinton and explaining how her policies might benefit the millennials and the working class and of course this country in general.
If you find Trump disgusting (as you have indicated in the past), then use your voice to stop him.
I guess you have given up the fight (thank God) for the soul of the GOP and now (maybe unintentionally) are alienating millennials.
The millennials will figure out what is important and what is not as time goes by. Just like Baby Boomers and Generation Xs did.
My suggestion for future columns. Make them (and yourself) more relevant by supporting Hillary Clinton and explaining how her policies might benefit the millennials and the working class and of course this country in general.
If you find Trump disgusting (as you have indicated in the past), then use your voice to stop him.
3
These false nostalgias ring hollow with me and they lack imagination. The irony, of course, is Mr. Brooks wrote this catering to a digital audience. His success depends on the medium.
It's also easy to look at the latest (insert techno gadget name) of the decade and say it's destroying our societal fabric. (Anyone remember those Kill Your Television bumper stickers in the 80s? Small potatoes now!)
In my opinion, these devices have been instrumental in exploding issues of inequality. Think police brutality. (Think most of the stories the Times chooses to cover.) I have discovered online communities of like-minded people I never knew existed. In other words, there are people out there who think like I do. If Instagram had been around when I was in high school, my social connections and self-confidence would have been bolstered. As with life, social media does take some cherry picking.
It's not all doom and gloom.
It's also easy to look at the latest (insert techno gadget name) of the decade and say it's destroying our societal fabric. (Anyone remember those Kill Your Television bumper stickers in the 80s? Small potatoes now!)
In my opinion, these devices have been instrumental in exploding issues of inequality. Think police brutality. (Think most of the stories the Times chooses to cover.) I have discovered online communities of like-minded people I never knew existed. In other words, there are people out there who think like I do. If Instagram had been around when I was in high school, my social connections and self-confidence would have been bolstered. As with life, social media does take some cherry picking.
It's not all doom and gloom.
3
I think we're confusing social media with cell phone use more generally. Hiding behind a phone is indeed a diversionary tactic but not necessarily a social one. For many people, phones have replaced books and news papers as the external signal saying "leave me alone". Does anyone really want to make chitchat after a 12 hour day? The fact that phones are multi-media simply provides more options for distraction. The message is still the same though.
As for social degradation, I agree with Mr. Marche. You get what you give. Making lasting connections through digital media is rare and unique. Most people need to reinforce the relationship. As for compulsion, I'll simply say it's easier to coordinate social outings or stay in touch with family via punctuated messages. I don't think I have more than three relatives living in a single state. That's not to mention time zones. Sorry but Sunday brunch is out and there's only so much time for phone calls.
By the way, nobody ever knocked letter writing. How much time did that take everyday? Think of social media as letter writing on crack. One polite word of advice though: don't be a cell phone junky on a busy sidewalk. People are going places! Be respectful and get out of the way.
As for social degradation, I agree with Mr. Marche. You get what you give. Making lasting connections through digital media is rare and unique. Most people need to reinforce the relationship. As for compulsion, I'll simply say it's easier to coordinate social outings or stay in touch with family via punctuated messages. I don't think I have more than three relatives living in a single state. That's not to mention time zones. Sorry but Sunday brunch is out and there's only so much time for phone calls.
By the way, nobody ever knocked letter writing. How much time did that take everyday? Think of social media as letter writing on crack. One polite word of advice though: don't be a cell phone junky on a busy sidewalk. People are going places! Be respectful and get out of the way.
5
It is sadly ironic. The greater our connectivity, the less connected we become. Mr. Brooks, do you have a smart phone? I do. It's not making me any smarter. Does it matter if the phone is smart?
www.endthemadnessnow.org
www.endthemadnessnow.org
2
now i really feel like an alien. i only check my home phone for messages once/day, my cell phone about once/week and and my e-mail only once/day.
what's wrong with me?
what's wrong with me?
1
I agree, and then I remember phrases from the past about the majority of us supposedly leading lives of quiet desperation even then, Pink Floyd via Thoreau, the Beatles' Nowhere Man, even Lear who lived in a world he did not see. Are our virtual lives really new, or simply the technological continuation of the same old un-examined lives?
97
The 'collective human' (aka, mass man) seems to evolve towards balance. Perhaps the advent of 'virtual reality' is a defense against the world wide right wing abuse and destruction of 'regular old, tried and true reality.
Radx28: Who mentioned politics, right wing or left wing?"Tout ce qui n'est pas clair n'est pas Anglais!" Read Strunk and White for starters, and learn how to write in plain old Anglo Saxon English, no offense intended. Disjointed remarks, neither well thought out nor well expressed, illustrate perfectly one of the points that Brooks has made, that clear, grammatical writing is one of the casualties of the technological revolution.Recommendation:Learn basics of diction, of word usage.
I don't necessarily disagree with Mr Brooks' perspective on phones and social media. But for many of us who grew up without email and subsequent technology, social media have been a way to reestablish old ties. I went off to college in the early 1970s and never looked back. Back then, apart from being nearby, letter writing or expensive phone calls were the only way to keep in touch. With time and distance, I lost connections with people I had known very well.
The internet and social media have changed that. One old friend I found on Facebook about five years ago stopped to visit for a few days last year when traveling with her college-age daughter and her daughter's friend. We had not seen each other in 40 years. It was thrilling for us to see each other. We quickly reestablished our old friendship, which continues today. Another friend was a young man the last time I saw him in 1975. He found me on the internet, and when he was nearby while on a business trip came to our house for dinner. We had a wonderful time catching up. One thing that completely surprised me was that he still had and continued to use a recipe for cheesecake I had developed in 1974. I no longer had the recipe, so he gave me a copy. I heard a couple of years later that he had died. I was very grateful I had been able to see him again.
The internet and social media have changed that. One old friend I found on Facebook about five years ago stopped to visit for a few days last year when traveling with her college-age daughter and her daughter's friend. We had not seen each other in 40 years. It was thrilling for us to see each other. We quickly reestablished our old friendship, which continues today. Another friend was a young man the last time I saw him in 1975. He found me on the internet, and when he was nearby while on a business trip came to our house for dinner. We had a wonderful time catching up. One thing that completely surprised me was that he still had and continued to use a recipe for cheesecake I had developed in 1974. I no longer had the recipe, so he gave me a copy. I heard a couple of years later that he had died. I was very grateful I had been able to see him again.
1
When Mr Brooks diverts from politics to philosophy, he usually hits the mark.
I use social media very sparingly, primarily via commenting on the NYT; I don't own a smartphone and have only 4 FB friends (one of whom is dead and one of whom I've blocked because he annoys me). I had high hopes when I began to participate online, but found it disappointing primarily in the way it flattens and simplifies both intellectual and emotional life. I cannot construct a Potemkin self. My grief will not be contained in crying emojis, nor my joy summed up by cartoon unicorns. Thoughts worth having burst the constraints of 140 characters, and can't be reduced to a hashtag.
Discussion of politics, literature, the arts, or any topic of intellectual substance? The Internet's like Monty Python's Argument Clinic, except not funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDjCqjzbvJY
And 3/4 of the comments are so incoherent, with grammar, spelling, syntax and punctuation random or absent, that it would be easier to read Linear A. When one does decipher them, they prove not to have been worth the effort. Anyone who, like me, grew up on Montaigne and Shaw, Edmund Wilson and the old New Yorker, crawls through the intellectual desert of the Internet 'community' begging for water and encountering only the occasional mirage.
I use social media very sparingly, primarily via commenting on the NYT; I don't own a smartphone and have only 4 FB friends (one of whom is dead and one of whom I've blocked because he annoys me). I had high hopes when I began to participate online, but found it disappointing primarily in the way it flattens and simplifies both intellectual and emotional life. I cannot construct a Potemkin self. My grief will not be contained in crying emojis, nor my joy summed up by cartoon unicorns. Thoughts worth having burst the constraints of 140 characters, and can't be reduced to a hashtag.
Discussion of politics, literature, the arts, or any topic of intellectual substance? The Internet's like Monty Python's Argument Clinic, except not funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDjCqjzbvJY
And 3/4 of the comments are so incoherent, with grammar, spelling, syntax and punctuation random or absent, that it would be easier to read Linear A. When one does decipher them, they prove not to have been worth the effort. Anyone who, like me, grew up on Montaigne and Shaw, Edmund Wilson and the old New Yorker, crawls through the intellectual desert of the Internet 'community' begging for water and encountering only the occasional mirage.
It's boring and rude as well as unhealthy. During social gatherings when people should be conversing, they ignore their guests and start punching on their smartphones. Put those things away and interact with fellow humans rather than the ethernet.
1
As I approach my 72nd lap around the sun (many thanks to Neal deGrass Tyson for that metaphor), I am one of the holdout for intimate connectivity with friends and family. In the course of my career in advertising and marketing, I have had to relocate more often than I liked. But those relocations never interrupted the great relationships of my life. I am lucky to have several friends with whom we share the "everything" Brooks mentioned.
Trust is a big part of our bond of friendship and kinship. Our innermost thoughts, feelings and reflections are on the table when there is no fear of judgement. While I am not a user of social media in any form, emailing and phone calls on a relatively frequent basis allows us to continue the chatter that informs, and confirms, our relationships. It may be on the phone, or on Skype or FaceTime. When separated by 1500 miles, these tools come in handy.
The very fact that I can read this article and write this missive means I have a computer. I also have an iPhone for business and pleasure. As a journalist (and former magazine editor) I will eventually purchase an iPad to work offsite on stories and my own Great American Novel.
Still, with all these tools and my disposal, email and texting cannot provide voice inflection and tone. Intimacy can be too easily lost in the cold darkness of the internet and social media.
Trust is a big part of our bond of friendship and kinship. Our innermost thoughts, feelings and reflections are on the table when there is no fear of judgement. While I am not a user of social media in any form, emailing and phone calls on a relatively frequent basis allows us to continue the chatter that informs, and confirms, our relationships. It may be on the phone, or on Skype or FaceTime. When separated by 1500 miles, these tools come in handy.
The very fact that I can read this article and write this missive means I have a computer. I also have an iPhone for business and pleasure. As a journalist (and former magazine editor) I will eventually purchase an iPad to work offsite on stories and my own Great American Novel.
Still, with all these tools and my disposal, email and texting cannot provide voice inflection and tone. Intimacy can be too easily lost in the cold darkness of the internet and social media.
Well, thanks for the reassurance that not going on facebook for the past couple years, not checking my phone incessantly, and having a lot of actual face-to-face time with people, is working out for me. The angst and disconnection described here seems understandable and predictable, and it's why I just don't live life like this. People can choose not to, and I'm betting that sooner or later, people will choose not to a lot more often.
I'd like to thank David Brooks for making me feel like less of a freak. I don't own a cellphone or have a Facebook page.
Why people seem to have such an urgent need to be attached to others at all times, and share every moment of their existence, is beyond me. Do you really need to see pictures of someone's lunch? Is it necessary to talk on the phone in freeway traffic? If several people go to the trouble to meet for a beer, what makes them sit there texting others? People chat away in the next bathroom stall and share intimate details of their love lives while in line at the post office. It's very strange and disturbing.
Why people seem to have such an urgent need to be attached to others at all times, and share every moment of their existence, is beyond me. Do you really need to see pictures of someone's lunch? Is it necessary to talk on the phone in freeway traffic? If several people go to the trouble to meet for a beer, what makes them sit there texting others? People chat away in the next bathroom stall and share intimate details of their love lives while in line at the post office. It's very strange and disturbing.
2
The mass of men live lives a distraction, and many of us seek distraction from distraction.
1
One indicator of how I see that things have changed
1. It used to be that there was a small group of people -- your close friends -- where you could simply show up at their door unannounced and you'd be welcome
2. Now that's become people that you can call without texting first, because simply calling someone up without notifying them beforehand via text is considered rude. Heaven knows what would happen if you showed up at their door.
1. It used to be that there was a small group of people -- your close friends -- where you could simply show up at their door unannounced and you'd be welcome
2. Now that's become people that you can call without texting first, because simply calling someone up without notifying them beforehand via text is considered rude. Heaven knows what would happen if you showed up at their door.
During breaks in my 2 1/2 hour long seminars, my students no longer talk to each other. They take out their phones, anxious to answer meaningful questions such as "what's up" and "where are you?'
Only 3-4 years ago, they would start chatting with the person sitting next to them, comparing notes and grades, and doing what college students are supposed to do: making new friends.
No more. Literally: no more. Breaks are moments of deep silence, of total isolation and alienation from the surrounding environment.
I find it unsettling and deeply troubling, yet at the same time I know the overall trend cannot be stopped.
However, starting next semester, I will impose new rules: those who decide to stay in class during breaks will agree not to touch their phones.
I may end up being the only one there.
Only 3-4 years ago, they would start chatting with the person sitting next to them, comparing notes and grades, and doing what college students are supposed to do: making new friends.
No more. Literally: no more. Breaks are moments of deep silence, of total isolation and alienation from the surrounding environment.
I find it unsettling and deeply troubling, yet at the same time I know the overall trend cannot be stopped.
However, starting next semester, I will impose new rules: those who decide to stay in class during breaks will agree not to touch their phones.
I may end up being the only one there.
I quit all forms of social media several months ago when I found myself not only arguing with people I did not know but having it dominate my feelings for days at a time.
I am not alone in this experience.
Many other individuals have had this experience.
I do not believe that social media has added to our discourse - it has just debased us enough with anonymity and group identification; allowing the marginalized and volatile personalities in our society a platform that they would not necessarily ever have had otherwise.
A recipe for disaster.
I am not alone in this experience.
Many other individuals have had this experience.
I do not believe that social media has added to our discourse - it has just debased us enough with anonymity and group identification; allowing the marginalized and volatile personalities in our society a platform that they would not necessarily ever have had otherwise.
A recipe for disaster.
2
My "high-quality friendships" are face to face, took years to reach maturity, and are lasting for life. Casual acquaintances are numerous. My general rule in meeting all people is to be courteous. Just maybe friendship will occur.
3
What bothers me most about social media and screen devices is that we are all guinea pigs for this new technology. We are all living experiments for what our vaunted tech companies are putting out. Unlike new drugs or new foods that have to be tested before being released, our tech devices have been unleashed on us without any understanding of the effects they will have. One day in the future, people may look back on these years and wonder how all of us could have been so gullible.
1
Way off, my friend. The one line you got right was the tools line. Otherwise, the real reason for the social isolation is a generation of parents that have raised children with two interests at heart -- themselves and secondly, their parents. There is no need for friends. Better to climb the ladder at work. Oh and I'll help buy you a home. We can live together when I grow old. Technology has little to do with this American phenomenon.
Did you talk to your kids recently? Are you in constant touch with them, physical contact? Via phone or instagram or snapchat or FB? If the answer is yes, then you too are avoiding intimacy with your own children.
1
What I witnessed: 3 girls come into Starbucks and ask me to move over so they can sit together. No problem. They then spend the entire time on their iPhones and did not once talk to each other. Not once.
Social media is all well and good but you should be able to turn it off and not LET it intrude on your real life.
Social media is all well and good but you should be able to turn it off and not LET it intrude on your real life.
1
Everyone's relationship with social media is different. I live in a rural area and work either from my home or car with just a laptop as my companion. Facebook is my connection with actual friends/family, and many I'll never meet with whom I share my passions of music and film. Subjects in which my "real" friends are largely uninterested. I've had fascinating exchanges with people all over the world. Sometimes I've spent much too much time online, checking threads of conversations in which I'm participating. It's hard to discipline yourself and strike a balance, but without my phone my days would be lonely indeed.
41
Many comments of the "phones don't alienate people, people do" because a phone's "only a tool." Perhaps true for adults. Not true for children and adolescents whose templates for emotional and intellectual life are being formed, whose impulse control/hormones are easier for corporations to manipulate, and who have not yet had life experiences and deeper social relations against which to measure the inadequacy of virtual existence. When I walk across a campus, or into a classroom of waiting students, and see every single one glued to a phone, not communicating with the real people nearby, it's hard not to be very, very worried.
2
Another self-help book report by Master Brooks.
2
I highly recommend Connie Willis' new novel, Crosstalk, about exactly this issue.
The reliance on "social" media also contributes to our dysfunctional, polarized politics.
When my daughter was in elementary school, I volunteered for a literacy program at her school. Among the parents I met, mostly other mothers, there was one woman who always stood out to me for her calm intelligence, tolerant attitudes, and relaxed dignity. She and her family are committed Christians and rabid Republicans—the father is a small businessman, the son who was my daughter's classmate is now, at 20, some kind of young Republican guru blogger. I'm a rabidly liberal Democrat who practices no religion.
This was never a problem in our interactions: we shared a clear and caring vision of what school should be for our children. When I saw her again after several years, we hugged. She's a person to me, not an ideology, because of conversations we had in which eye contact and subtle body postures conveyed friendliness and the wholeness of a person. I couldn't hate her for her politics.
We've forgotten that community life is bedrock of American democracy.
Then again, some would say neighborliness became extinct with universal air conditioning. People used to sit on the porch in the evening to cool off. You rarely see people in those sterile suburban yards. We think of our homes as mini-fortresses we retreat to after the petty abuses, humiliation, and disempowerment of the workplace. We go home to repair our dispirited, vague shame at not making enough money to matter. We cocoon.
When my daughter was in elementary school, I volunteered for a literacy program at her school. Among the parents I met, mostly other mothers, there was one woman who always stood out to me for her calm intelligence, tolerant attitudes, and relaxed dignity. She and her family are committed Christians and rabid Republicans—the father is a small businessman, the son who was my daughter's classmate is now, at 20, some kind of young Republican guru blogger. I'm a rabidly liberal Democrat who practices no religion.
This was never a problem in our interactions: we shared a clear and caring vision of what school should be for our children. When I saw her again after several years, we hugged. She's a person to me, not an ideology, because of conversations we had in which eye contact and subtle body postures conveyed friendliness and the wholeness of a person. I couldn't hate her for her politics.
We've forgotten that community life is bedrock of American democracy.
Then again, some would say neighborliness became extinct with universal air conditioning. People used to sit on the porch in the evening to cool off. You rarely see people in those sterile suburban yards. We think of our homes as mini-fortresses we retreat to after the petty abuses, humiliation, and disempowerment of the workplace. We go home to repair our dispirited, vague shame at not making enough money to matter. We cocoon.
I am retired. I have no Facebook, nor Twitter, nor Instagram. I don't have a smart phone. I don't watch television. I take pictures with a thing called a "camera." I haven't been on an airplane in ten years. I read the classics. I bake and cook. I feed the birds. Gosh, what an electronically-deprived life I have!
96
But you do have the internet it seems and you read the MYT electronically, or do you post by telegram?
I'm still trying to find the phone on my Canon.
what time is dinner ?
The obsession with smart phones and social media rather than direct human contact is only a symptom of the extreme individualism that has occurred since about 1980 - coinciding with Uncle Ronny's tenure as President.
His harping that government (read "all of us") is the problem and the subsequent cutting of the social safety net instills the idea that you're on your own. All kids get a trophy just for showing up. They're taught that they are unique snowflakes and urged to excel no matter what.
Etzioni's idea of communitarianism loses out to "dog eat dog".
And guess who has spearheaded that movement? Republicans and their cheerleaders like David Brooks.
His harping that government (read "all of us") is the problem and the subsequent cutting of the social safety net instills the idea that you're on your own. All kids get a trophy just for showing up. They're taught that they are unique snowflakes and urged to excel no matter what.
Etzioni's idea of communitarianism loses out to "dog eat dog".
And guess who has spearheaded that movement? Republicans and their cheerleaders like David Brooks.
6
Ha! I just spit out my coffee. The Republicans had their hand in the obsession with social media? Sometimes the comments on this publications I think are satire.
Gosh, more evidence that some people read into things what they want. So, John from Boston, what I said is that the obsession is born of the extreme individualism that is pawned off by the likes of Ayn Rand-loving Republicans as the American Way. The community and its infrastructure be damned. "Don't Tread on Me." Got it now? Maybe the coffee upped your reading conprehension.
I spend a lot of time in front of my laptop reading the digital version of the NYT in an effort to get my $10 per month's worth of wisdom from David. Sometimes I'm lonely but that's not as bad as not being lonely and wishing you were.
2
$10/month? Geez, I pay $15. A west coast upcharge?
1
Please adjust statistic in first two grafs for aging of population - the US population is much older, on avg, then in 1985
Wow, 10 hours a day. This somewhat explains my daughter's experience as a new college student. She is having a hard time finding people to hang out with. I told her to hang out in the common areas - you can't meet people in your room. She says that people mainly go to the common areas to use their phones. Like her, I was also an introverted first year student, and I remember loving dorm life and meeting so many people. I am confident that she will, but it takes longer and takes more effort these days to really meet new people (as opposed to superficially).
It's tough. Being able to be in touch with old friends and family can make you feel less isolated and keep homesickness at bay, but it also hinders the reaching out to meet the new people around you.
It's tough. Being able to be in touch with old friends and family can make you feel less isolated and keep homesickness at bay, but it also hinders the reaching out to meet the new people around you.
5
@SCD - A few years ago, my daughter also struggled in her first year at college. We suggested she join a few clubs in her areas of interest. It was a surprisingly effective way to meet people with similar interests that she otherwise might not have met. Good luck to your daughter.
For once I am fairly pleased at Brooks's words, especially when he makes reference to Michel de Montaigne's essay on friendship, where a key sentence, "Parce que c'était lui, parce que c'était moi" speaks warmly of the friendship between the essayist and Etienne de la Boetie. As far as electronic media and virtual reality are concerned, it is probably time to do some serious disengaging in order to re-engage in real life.
2
I was having a heavy conversation with a close friend. Well into the heart to heart talk her phone alerted of a call. She immediately answered the phone. I assumed the call was important. Soon she was talking to her roommate about dinner plans and where to go to eat. We never got to finish our conversation. Since then my relationship with my friend is colored by this lack of manners.
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Story of dealing with my sister!
Musings from a conservative under the guise of presenting an analysis of current psychological findings. Mr. Brooks, I teach grad students in a clinical psychology program and your piece would earn a low grade. There are findings for and against the use of phones and social media. At the same time you're decrying the use of phones there are studies that have demonstrated that the Internet makes it possible for people to access help either through support sites where one can find someone to text with about problems, a modern version of a hotline, or to seek out therapy in an online version or to even reach out and get help when suicidal. There are also apps that people can use to help themselves in a pinch.
From a mental health perspective, smartphones actually have some benefits. Yes, there are also aspects of social media and too much time on smartphones that are problematic but they are not all bad.
This is your opinion column, so you're entitled to your opinion. But to continue pontificating about the same version of 'our society is not as good as it used to be' by throwing in one or two articles you've read does your readers a disservice. The Internet is making it possible for people in areas that are isolated or have fewer resources to access services and at times make it possible to save lives. Isn't that worth acknowledging too?
From a mental health perspective, smartphones actually have some benefits. Yes, there are also aspects of social media and too much time on smartphones that are problematic but they are not all bad.
This is your opinion column, so you're entitled to your opinion. But to continue pontificating about the same version of 'our society is not as good as it used to be' by throwing in one or two articles you've read does your readers a disservice. The Internet is making it possible for people in areas that are isolated or have fewer resources to access services and at times make it possible to save lives. Isn't that worth acknowledging too?
1
Anne, could not agree more about David Brooks
It's not just Facebook, it's electronics period. Does this sound old fashioned?
I don't care.
Our office recently experienced a shortage of workers. As a retiree who works part time without any benefits, they call it "casual hours" - I approached my boss (who is probably 25 years younger than me) and said I would help fill in the hours. But I told her the conversation about the schedule would have to take place when I got her full attention, such as in the break room, where she didn't have her nose in front of her computer when I was trying to talk to her. She was mortified and acted like I had just prodded her with an electric shock collar, in addition of me being disrespectful, which she mentioned later.
The point is, when I have tried to speak to her and she is determined to keep her attention on the computer and accepts it is ok to only "half listen" - if that - she misses what is said, forgets, or screws up the schedule and then says she doesn't remember. As long as I was volunteering my time to help her out by picking up more hours temporarily, I figured she could talk with me face to face, not face to computer to face.
It's not just her. It's everywhere. My kids, my grandkids. I see young families come into restaurants for a family outing, right? They each sit there on their phones not even speaking to each other while their food somehow makes its way to their mouths. Might as well just stay home. What an outing!
Ah, electronics.
I don't care.
Our office recently experienced a shortage of workers. As a retiree who works part time without any benefits, they call it "casual hours" - I approached my boss (who is probably 25 years younger than me) and said I would help fill in the hours. But I told her the conversation about the schedule would have to take place when I got her full attention, such as in the break room, where she didn't have her nose in front of her computer when I was trying to talk to her. She was mortified and acted like I had just prodded her with an electric shock collar, in addition of me being disrespectful, which she mentioned later.
The point is, when I have tried to speak to her and she is determined to keep her attention on the computer and accepts it is ok to only "half listen" - if that - she misses what is said, forgets, or screws up the schedule and then says she doesn't remember. As long as I was volunteering my time to help her out by picking up more hours temporarily, I figured she could talk with me face to face, not face to computer to face.
It's not just her. It's everywhere. My kids, my grandkids. I see young families come into restaurants for a family outing, right? They each sit there on their phones not even speaking to each other while their food somehow makes its way to their mouths. Might as well just stay home. What an outing!
Ah, electronics.
7
I find it especially depressing to see all the people, young and old, with their faces buried in smart phone screens. It is an addiction and an anti-social phenomenon. There is, in 99.999% of these cases, absolutely nothing coming over these peoples' phones that they cannot wait to find out about. I guarantee that. We survived in the world before smart phones and this disease of being constantly "connected." I have a smart phone but I hardly ever use it. It sits, unused, often for months at a time. I really keep it for emergencies. I have a facebook page but I have not looked at it for months. I use it mostly to post pictures for friends, but I'm months behind on that too. I have no twitter account or snapchat or any of these other communication platforms which seem pointless and frivolous. I admit that my main interaction with the news and communication is through my computer, but it cannot be on or on me all the time. I worry that people are losing the simple and necessary joys of walking quietly down a path with nothing but their own thoughts, or just watching the world and paying attention to what is around them, or just sitting quietly with nothing but a good book. There is a lot to be said for being disconnected from the world and getting to know other human beings face to face.
2
The anti-social "social media!" Certainly a boon in many ways, and a compelling reason why government should promote availability of broadband everywhere in America. But to write of this as a separate topic is a reflection of the problem itself, which is largely urban. When I visited the village where I was born, 60+ years after that event, a boyhood friend took me to my old home. “We’ll say hello to Charlie,” he said. The key was in the door, and without knocking, my friend opened it and walked in. “Hello Charlie,” he said to the current occupant who was happy we’d just dropped in. "This man was born in your house," my friend said.
Cities have been around for thousands of years, but most of us are descended from country folk, and before them, we’re all descended from foragers. Cities are a mixed blessing, with precious little blessing for many. A necessary evil! Our laissez-faire economy neglects cities, where we spend most of our lives.
Cities have been around for thousands of years, but most of us are descended from country folk, and before them, we’re all descended from foragers. Cities are a mixed blessing, with precious little blessing for many. A necessary evil! Our laissez-faire economy neglects cities, where we spend most of our lives.
1
The central idea or theme of this writing seems to have drifted quite a bit. But, I would attempt to reduce your questions and observations to: Have our ethics changed and have we lost trust as a result?
Not only do many of us experince the anti-social behavior of others, but the robust amount of news and other sources of information has become immediate and overwhelming.
From our politician's indescretions to the indescretions of the prettiest girl in your neighborhood-growing up, to Putin in Syria, and Wells Fargo's cedit card problems we get it all in a nano second or two.
One loses trust more and more. but you don't want to miss out! Stay connected and stay away.
Not only do many of us experince the anti-social behavior of others, but the robust amount of news and other sources of information has become immediate and overwhelming.
From our politician's indescretions to the indescretions of the prettiest girl in your neighborhood-growing up, to Putin in Syria, and Wells Fargo's cedit card problems we get it all in a nano second or two.
One loses trust more and more. but you don't want to miss out! Stay connected and stay away.
2
Increasingly, people lack or are bereft of relevance, respect, and reality. Each of us needs these things to be balanced, healthy and mature. Sadly, though many other factors are certainly involved, our mass social media technology (including so-called professional platforms like Linkedin which seems more social than not albeit with a supposed professional purpose) creates a distant, artificial and removed (safe?) environment that frustrates more than satisfies our legitimate human needs. To whom are we relevant and on whom can we rely? Who do we really respect (not envy) and who respects us? Will they listen, really listen, and offer grounded mature advice? Is our reality the concrete world, a virtual world or a combination of both? The human spirit wants not to be constrained but to seek and achieve the best in each of us. But without a grounded and real sense of self, our efforts are sporadic and often directionless, momentarily satisfied without longer term purpose. Some suggest a growth of psychotherapeutic services that seems to roughly correlate to the growth of social media. Indeed, the psychotherapy profession seeks legitimate ways to utilize social media. The bottom line, though, is that each of us needs - and wants - the immediacy of human interaction. There is simply no substitute.
1
Of course social media is a tool, but one without instructions on how best to use it.
We have been conditioned to constantly find distraction from the long slog we call daily life. These little bursts of dopamine we get from checking our phones and social media apps has programmed us to live our lives in short bursts -- always itching for our next hit.
We can highlight many downsides to our obsession with our "tools," but perhaps the most nefarious is how we have become trained us to see the world through an entertainment lens, where our amuzement supercedes critical thinking and information replaces news.
The Republican nominee is a direct by-product of the pervasiveness of social media. I don't think he could have been the nominee twenty years ago.
We have been conditioned to constantly find distraction from the long slog we call daily life. These little bursts of dopamine we get from checking our phones and social media apps has programmed us to live our lives in short bursts -- always itching for our next hit.
We can highlight many downsides to our obsession with our "tools," but perhaps the most nefarious is how we have become trained us to see the world through an entertainment lens, where our amuzement supercedes critical thinking and information replaces news.
The Republican nominee is a direct by-product of the pervasiveness of social media. I don't think he could have been the nominee twenty years ago.
here is what is good:
* in between patients or when i'm not enjoying my normal people watching habit, i read the books that are on my phone (saves space in the purse)
* i do the nyt crossword puzzles
* i check the texts that tell me a patient is on the way or a no show
* i read the nyt and the new yorker
* i transfer money from the savings to the checking and vice versa
* i'll scroll fb not for "the best friend envy" phenom or for dopaminergic bursts of pleasure from seeing cat videos or dancing skeleton gifs, but because i get to read the stories from the papers and magazines i don't have subscriptions to.
when i want interaction with a friend, i call them on the phone and i make a date. same as ever. when i'm having dinner, i eat, never scroll. when i'm with a friend who is scrolling or answering or texting during our "date", i politely ask them to stick with the human in front of them. we are a dying breed.
* in between patients or when i'm not enjoying my normal people watching habit, i read the books that are on my phone (saves space in the purse)
* i do the nyt crossword puzzles
* i check the texts that tell me a patient is on the way or a no show
* i read the nyt and the new yorker
* i transfer money from the savings to the checking and vice versa
* i'll scroll fb not for "the best friend envy" phenom or for dopaminergic bursts of pleasure from seeing cat videos or dancing skeleton gifs, but because i get to read the stories from the papers and magazines i don't have subscriptions to.
when i want interaction with a friend, i call them on the phone and i make a date. same as ever. when i'm having dinner, i eat, never scroll. when i'm with a friend who is scrolling or answering or texting during our "date", i politely ask them to stick with the human in front of them. we are a dying breed.
All fine and dandy. But you most likely formed your social self and private self before "devices" arrived on the scene. Right?
People feel a compulsive need to check their smartphone every 4.3 minutes? I find that hard to believe. My nephews and nieces would wither and die if they went half that long without posting a bon mot on social media ;)
2
"Just say no"? Is Brooks now channeling Nancy Reagan? Shall we perhaps instead consider the powerful profit incentive of corporations to push this drug and turn us all into addicts? Ever consider the possibility that higher effective tax rates might help blunt that motivation?
It is indeed a serious question - I do like that quote from Sullivan: "...we are diminishing the scope of [intimate] interaction even as we multiply the number of people with whom we interact." It reminds me of a lovely river in northern Michigan, which was threatened by the speedboats plowing up and down the river, their wakes destroying the banks and the ecosystems of the shore areas. Then new regulations were put in place to force the boats to slow down. "No wake!" with signs posted explaining that the wakes made the river wider and shallower and less healthy for the ecosystem. Those of us who used to roar up and down the river as kids gained a new appreciation for the turtles and cat-tails and the beauty of the natural river.
It is indeed a serious question - I do like that quote from Sullivan: "...we are diminishing the scope of [intimate] interaction even as we multiply the number of people with whom we interact." It reminds me of a lovely river in northern Michigan, which was threatened by the speedboats plowing up and down the river, their wakes destroying the banks and the ecosystems of the shore areas. Then new regulations were put in place to force the boats to slow down. "No wake!" with signs posted explaining that the wakes made the river wider and shallower and less healthy for the ecosystem. Those of us who used to roar up and down the river as kids gained a new appreciation for the turtles and cat-tails and the beauty of the natural river.
Loneliness seems to be a big presence in your life Mr. Brooks. Even when you aren't talking about it overtly, you talk about it in the wistful way you remember a halcyon past only real in some beloved literary work.
It hasn't been so long since I was young that I don't remember wondering constantly if I was missing something. If some interesting thing was going on without me. That is the province of the young and the way the world is open to them. Thirty years ago people were saying the same thing about the telephone connected by a wire to the phone system.
The person who said we are never off work got it right. As we have become slaves to our jobs and our increasingly insensible lifestyles, time for other people has disappeared. Technology isn't the problem. What we value in our lives is.
It hasn't been so long since I was young that I don't remember wondering constantly if I was missing something. If some interesting thing was going on without me. That is the province of the young and the way the world is open to them. Thirty years ago people were saying the same thing about the telephone connected by a wire to the phone system.
The person who said we are never off work got it right. As we have become slaves to our jobs and our increasingly insensible lifestyles, time for other people has disappeared. Technology isn't the problem. What we value in our lives is.
2
I have a smartphone but I do not do any social media on it. I closed my Twitter account early this year because it simply wasn't worth it to read people's rants. I don't do Snapchat, Pinterest or any similar media because they're so superficial. I finally opened a Facebook account about 15 months ago, at the urging of my wife and kids, but I only visit the site on my PC. I refuse to do it on my phone. It bothers me to post something I care about, then see good replies from real-world friends I know and love -- and begin seeing their comments (and my original post) excoriated by rude, vindictive, unthinking people I don't even know. I admit I'm a senior citizen, and I value the friendships I've made over the decades that now have very deep roots. I do have some new friendships I've made with local friends on social media, but while I enjoy them, they're more like acquaintanceships than friendships. We don't really have any shared experiences, so the roots aren't there yet, as they are with former schoolmates, colleagues at work, etc. So I have to agree with Mr. Brooks on this column. I don't know how we solve this problem, but it's surely changing society.
3
Commenting on NYT opinion pieces is the healthy version of participation in social media - right?
2
Right.
Dave, as I see and experience it, lack of sympathy, lack of empathy equal lack of friendly relationships. Its a kind of power madness that once given the intimate secrets of another we tend to use them to undermine that person to quickly and easily gain the affection of others who only offer mere facades of friendship, thus undermining the good relationship in favor of the bad. Technology has, as you have pointed out, only given a simulacrum of autonomy to our personal relationships. A society of individuals needs to value the personal interaction above all else and seek empathy and sympathy in all aspects of life including the pursuit of capital and goods. Only then can we restore the value of personal relationships above the chattels of consumer society where they belong.
I have cancer, live alone, and can't get out much to socialize. I live in an area without New York's public transportation system. Most of my friends are physically distant. FaceBook and other interactive Internet sites, such as opinion sites with long-time, consistent, vibrant communities are life-savers, keeping me busy, engaged, and socially active, in a way.
But, I suppose I could ape Mr. Brooks and stare at the Catholic girls' high school right across the street, since I don't have a ballet school to gawk at through the window (Jan. 15, 2016).
But, I suppose I could ape Mr. Brooks and stare at the Catholic girls' high school right across the street, since I don't have a ballet school to gawk at through the window (Jan. 15, 2016).
1
To me what is most telling is that Steve Jobs limited his kids time with gadgets, as do many other Silicon Valley digerati:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tec...
Studies have shown that iPads and smartphones are a form of digital drug. Recent brain imaging research is showing that they affect the brain’s frontal cortex — which controls executive functioning, including impulse control — in exactly the same way that cocaine does.
This addictive effect is why Dr. Peter Whybrow, director of neuroscience at UCLA, calls screens “electronic cocaine” and Chinese researchers call them “digital heroin.” In fact, Dr. Andrew Doan, the head of addiction research for the Pentagon and the US Navy — who has been researching video game addiction — calls video games and screen technologies “digital pharmakeia."
I have opted out of Facebook. I fought reading the digital version of the NYTimes for as long as I could, but finally gave in. But, I try and read hard copies of books as often as I can. I actually check books out of libraries?!? Turns out, libraries usually have best sellers and whatever is newly published. Nowadays it's easy to get the book you want too because people aren't checking them out.
Try reading a hard copy of a book to add balance to your digital life. It's a different sensation, good for your soul and it's free!
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tec...
Studies have shown that iPads and smartphones are a form of digital drug. Recent brain imaging research is showing that they affect the brain’s frontal cortex — which controls executive functioning, including impulse control — in exactly the same way that cocaine does.
This addictive effect is why Dr. Peter Whybrow, director of neuroscience at UCLA, calls screens “electronic cocaine” and Chinese researchers call them “digital heroin.” In fact, Dr. Andrew Doan, the head of addiction research for the Pentagon and the US Navy — who has been researching video game addiction — calls video games and screen technologies “digital pharmakeia."
I have opted out of Facebook. I fought reading the digital version of the NYTimes for as long as I could, but finally gave in. But, I try and read hard copies of books as often as I can. I actually check books out of libraries?!? Turns out, libraries usually have best sellers and whatever is newly published. Nowadays it's easy to get the book you want too because people aren't checking them out.
Try reading a hard copy of a book to add balance to your digital life. It's a different sensation, good for your soul and it's free!
7
All of that time on devices is coming from something else they would have done. 10 hours a day? Something big is being left out.
Much of it is television. My kids just don't watch it. They watch any shows they want to see as binge watching on line. My wife always has the TV on, but she is on devices too, not really watching. She'll sleep while "watching" too.
Television was never healthy for our society either. Replacing it with something at least minimally interactive is a plus.
Teenage girls famously talked on the phone by the hour back when they needed a long line on their pink Princess land line phones. That is not a huge change. They talk now with more people at the same time, which is a slight improvement.
The big negative I see is the tendency of people to be physically together, yet each buried separately in their phones. Yet even that can be shared, which is better than sharing a cigarette while talking aimlessly.
Brooks here has done his usual. He taps into something real, but he compares it to some ideal past that never was. Reality then loses in comparison to his fantasy of the good old days.
Much of it is television. My kids just don't watch it. They watch any shows they want to see as binge watching on line. My wife always has the TV on, but she is on devices too, not really watching. She'll sleep while "watching" too.
Television was never healthy for our society either. Replacing it with something at least minimally interactive is a plus.
Teenage girls famously talked on the phone by the hour back when they needed a long line on their pink Princess land line phones. That is not a huge change. They talk now with more people at the same time, which is a slight improvement.
The big negative I see is the tendency of people to be physically together, yet each buried separately in their phones. Yet even that can be shared, which is better than sharing a cigarette while talking aimlessly.
Brooks here has done his usual. He taps into something real, but he compares it to some ideal past that never was. Reality then loses in comparison to his fantasy of the good old days.
14
I don't believe I agree with your conclusion.
Consider the new lament, "I have 200 [Facebook]Friends but I don't know anybody".
Consider the new lament, "I have 200 [Facebook]Friends but I don't know anybody".
You're right, TV was never good for society. However, TV watching at least allows for the possibility of some type of individual (or shared if watching with a companion) introspection. I remember when my wife and I used to criticize ourselves for spending too much time watching TV (together). Now, our problem is that we each spend too much time immersed in our phones while physically in the same room. Suddenly, the days of enjoying a show together seem like much more quality of time than what we do now. My point: we are all generally guilty of becoming slaves to our phones. Smart phones are not entirely bad, but to argue that they are an overall positive in terms of our human relations is a rationalization; not a sound argument argument that would convince any person being honest with themselves.
1
Boomer comment. My Irish grandmother and a few friends would get together in our home and say the Rosary. The sounds of Hail Marys and Our Fathers whispers filled the air while their fingers gently rubbered their Rosary Beads. They seldom engaged in conversation while saying the Rosary. But they did share hope, often directing it towards friends souls in need or JFK's afterlife.
Can't help but notice when my millennial children come home they often sit with friends holding their phones browsing and tapping apps seldom engaging in meaningful conversation. Is this their generation version of Rosary Beads?
My self I don't own any Rosary Beads, I do have an iPhone. I do say Hail Marys and Our Fathers daily for friends, family and of course JFK.
Can't help but notice when my millennial children come home they often sit with friends holding their phones browsing and tapping apps seldom engaging in meaningful conversation. Is this their generation version of Rosary Beads?
My self I don't own any Rosary Beads, I do have an iPhone. I do say Hail Marys and Our Fathers daily for friends, family and of course JFK.
9
THere's a big difference. The people saying the Rosary together are engaged in a mutual activity, a shared meditation. The people on their phones are all in separate worlds looking at different things. The body registers these two things quite differently. In one case together, in the other, not. There's a felt sense of togetherness in the prayer situation.
It's necessarily a "Boomer comment" to take note of a social phenomemon.
You've been writing some good articles David. Has the disaster in your political life been strengthening your thinking about life in general? REH
30
Excellent observation!
The prospect of a hanging ....
The prospect of a hanging ....
For God's Sake....
Ray, News Flash: Not Everything Is About Politics.
Perhaps you should consider commenting on the substance of what Mr. Brooks wrote regarding lasting relationships - and how we distance ourselves from them by putting up false walls...like partisan political views.
Ray, News Flash: Not Everything Is About Politics.
Perhaps you should consider commenting on the substance of what Mr. Brooks wrote regarding lasting relationships - and how we distance ourselves from them by putting up false walls...like partisan political views.
1
It used to be that people didn't post every little thing online. One of the reasons I do not like social media is because of the sniping, the out of context use of things that have been said, and the way many people will say things that they wouldn't have the guts to say to a person's face. One could argue that social media has contributed to the destruction of intimacy. It's made it harder to start over when one fails at either a relationship or a job because those failures can be broadcast to a far larger audience. Social media contributed to the loss of one close friendship in my life.
People have substituted online chats where the nuances get lost, for face to face conversations or phone conversations. The easy availability of "contacts" promotes dropping that friend who has problems and isn't terribly cheerful for the one who is upbeat, can laugh about life, and isn't too worried about the future. It's easier to be mean on social media. It's simpler to dump someone. Having a real friendship involves work, back and forth conversations, a willingness to listen rather than use the quick retort, an emoticon, or blocking because a person is in distress.
In this reader's opinion social media in the United States has made it much easier to avoid difficult relationship issues. Why work it out when you can IM a happier friend? Why should anyone bother to listen to the opposition when we can surround ourselves with a like minded virtual community?
People have substituted online chats where the nuances get lost, for face to face conversations or phone conversations. The easy availability of "contacts" promotes dropping that friend who has problems and isn't terribly cheerful for the one who is upbeat, can laugh about life, and isn't too worried about the future. It's easier to be mean on social media. It's simpler to dump someone. Having a real friendship involves work, back and forth conversations, a willingness to listen rather than use the quick retort, an emoticon, or blocking because a person is in distress.
In this reader's opinion social media in the United States has made it much easier to avoid difficult relationship issues. Why work it out when you can IM a happier friend? Why should anyone bother to listen to the opposition when we can surround ourselves with a like minded virtual community?
19
On the upside, you can see what your friends think about a variety of topics and can decide whether to keep of abandon them.
Some of us are reading non-fiction books and even the NYT on our phones. Don't assume it's all Snapchat/Twitter/Facebook.
72
Good point, Lisa.
But, in truth, isn't also a good thing to make eye contact with the other folks on the subway / bus / sidewalk and forge a modicum of connectedness?
But, in truth, isn't also a good thing to make eye contact with the other folks on the subway / bus / sidewalk and forge a modicum of connectedness?
1
You are criticizing our lack of face to face, one on one relationship. A valid point. One need only observe auto drivers to see how we are willing to throw safety to the wind to stay tuned in. This is the new age of multiple diverse near-acquaintances. Despite its social drawbacks, I don’t see the bulk of humanity wanting anything else.
We’ve become baby robins: “When will mommy bring me another worm?”
We’ve become baby robins: “When will mommy bring me another worm?”
9
David Brooks is clearly an extravert. He draws his energy from interacting with others. Many of us are introverts. Interacting with others in person sucks the energy out of us. For introverts, social media makes it easier to interact with a lot of people without feeling like you need a nap afterwards.
14
But is that a good thing? I empathize with introverts because I am one. However, we as individuals are members of society. Though the qualities of extroverts are historically celebrated and elevated with our social interactions at an unhealthy imbalance; that doesn't mean our qualities as introverts that are often "unsocial" should be enabled.
Deepest of emotions are those that never gets expressed and the saddest of thoughts live in the edges of loneliness; when we are surrounded with people and the tools of our age can take us to large groups or separate individuals at the click of a button, we cannot express the deepest of thoughts, but can dispose some harmless banters that can be shy of emotions. Serious work seldom gets done from these jibes, it remains a costly form of idleness in busy masks. No wonder real intellectual work is waning.
14
I have watched a lot of Louis C.K. His worldview is tragic, not funny. He views it as caricature, but it must come from personal experience. And we worry about whether a person is influenced by ethnic or religious background.
Look at Louis if you want to become thoroughly cynical.
Look at Louis if you want to become thoroughly cynical.
3
There's no question that this technology has an impact on social interaction. I don't know if it's good or not. I read the other day that now, if you wish to call someone on the phone, you have to first text them and ask permission or make an appointment. We've become so busy in the world to require this?
I like texting fine. It's good for quick interchange of information. But it's not a phone conversation or, better yet, a face to face discussion of something. When you lose that intimacy, you're changing the rules and not for the good.
I like texting fine. It's good for quick interchange of information. But it's not a phone conversation or, better yet, a face to face discussion of something. When you lose that intimacy, you're changing the rules and not for the good.
9
My mother had a stroke in April and slowly faded from us. In texting with my sister over all our arrangements to have someone with Mom and to plan for the end, I got a constant stream of suggested emoticons. When you are talking about something truly awful, those emoticons (crying smiley faces, etc.) are extremely annoying, and make it clear the shallowness of communication on web platforms.
I could hardly draft a single text without the system trying to put a picture in to reflect my emotions, rather than letting the words stand on their own. For me this was a frustrating thing. I suspect for many users, it is a benefit--another shortcut like LOL or BTW.
I could hardly draft a single text without the system trying to put a picture in to reflect my emotions, rather than letting the words stand on their own. For me this was a frustrating thing. I suspect for many users, it is a benefit--another shortcut like LOL or BTW.
8
It's about numbers. The planet hosts too many people. Quality vs. quantity. Person to person communication, complete with body language, is always best.
5
As with any tool or gadget, it is how you use it. I've reconnected with old friends and used FB messaging to start new friendships with folks who previously were acquaintances. I text to make plans with a friend. I've used my smartphone to have more in-person relationships and experiences, and that has made my life better.
5
I teach in a community college, where my students have a 15 minute break in the middle of the nearly three-hour class. They rarely speak to one another during the break. They never appear to make friends with anyone new. They rarely, if ever, go outside the building. Some of them never even leave their seats. Instead, they stare at their phones for the entire time, locked into their own little worlds. It is one of the saddest things I've seen in thirty years of teaching.
148
I had the opportunity of driving some distance yesterday morning as groups of children were on multiple corners waiting for school bus pick-up. From young elementary to high schoolers (the uncool ones without cars, I guess), none of these kids was interacting with one another: talking, laughing, shouting, pushing playfully. They were all on their devices, doing what at 7 AM I have no idea. So sad to see their brains being rewired and not learning how to interact with the live human being standing next to them.
We live in a society where a Vice President candidate for the most powerful country in the world not only lies, denies, and lies again, but is considered the winner by much of the country who watched it because of his, as someone here put it, lizard like winning style. Is America only about selling the used car with the odometer dishonestly spun back, and......we're lovin' it? That, my firend is a remarkable and sad state of affairs and I'm not sure where or if David Brooks acknowledges it. Talk about dishonest social media, whew!
12
We also live in a society where a Presidential nominee of the most powerful country in the world lies, denies, and tweets at 3am.
Scary, isn't it??
Scary, isn't it??
Smartphones discourage deeper connections because people don't want to type a long message. If I sent a longish email to friends, written on my laptop, I get back two sentences via their smartphone. Over and over. I used to have good email exchanges with people. Now, it's like everyone is in perpetual Christmas card mode, exchanging the briefest comments. Or photos, which "say a thousand words" and thereby give you an excuse to write nothing.
That's how it often goes for existing friendships. As for making new ones, I think social media has made it easier to make acquantances, the Christmas card kind, but harder to make true friends.
As for the dopamine high from getting "likes", I think many people who post comments on the NYT have felt it. It's one of the only websites where comments are monitored, so they're wonderfully snark-free and civil (mostly) and interesting. If I submit one that racks up lots of "recommends" -- well, I feel like the next David Brooks! I feel smart and popular and pretty and witty!
Until my next comment that gets only three likes. Reality check. You people don't like me after all. I turn off the gadget and get back to life, at least for a little while.
That's how it often goes for existing friendships. As for making new ones, I think social media has made it easier to make acquantances, the Christmas card kind, but harder to make true friends.
As for the dopamine high from getting "likes", I think many people who post comments on the NYT have felt it. It's one of the only websites where comments are monitored, so they're wonderfully snark-free and civil (mostly) and interesting. If I submit one that racks up lots of "recommends" -- well, I feel like the next David Brooks! I feel smart and popular and pretty and witty!
Until my next comment that gets only three likes. Reality check. You people don't like me after all. I turn off the gadget and get back to life, at least for a little while.
9
I overheard a 13 year old just a few days ago exclaim, when asked if she used Facebook (as she rolled her eyes) "Oh, that is soooo yesterday!" Yes, social media is political as is all media, and just look at how it is affecting the election! Texting may be good for transferring information rapidly (say, at work) or advertising (again, work), telling you why the train is stuck, or for posting some pictures (but once they're out there, are they still yours?) But it has reduced social relationships, especially for the young, to dating at the swipe of a picture on the phone, posting feelings with emoji's, and other meaningless twitter. Maybe the 13 year old is right, and this current obsession will go the way of the VHS tape, film cameras, and other past "indispensables" once we start to miss one another.
4
No. People have forever had less intimate relationships (friends and family) than they admitted.
Only old people say "it was so much better when..."
Talk a bit deeper with some millennials. You would be surprised.
The challenge has always been with people of your stripe, David. Non-changers who want to keep the dynamic world a stasis, impossibility. Instead of embracing progress, there is a fond look back at times that weren't because history is always colored rose.
There is one direction, David. It is progress.
Only old people say "it was so much better when..."
Talk a bit deeper with some millennials. You would be surprised.
The challenge has always been with people of your stripe, David. Non-changers who want to keep the dynamic world a stasis, impossibility. Instead of embracing progress, there is a fond look back at times that weren't because history is always colored rose.
There is one direction, David. It is progress.
5
I'm 62 and thankful for the modern miracle that I can buy a book and be reading it in under a minute. I can do all my Christmas shopping without setting foot in a brick and mortar store and manage my bank account from my living room. Otherwise, if you don't want to spend all your time browsing your phone or other device, or don't want to be on Facebook, then I'd suggest you don't. It's not that complicated.
176
And you avoid annoying "music". For me a great benefit!
My feelings exactly. Being able to do shopping, reading and banking on the net is such a blessing of modern technology, particularly in parts of the world that do not have good, uncrowded roads to walk on or drive on. And you get to read NYT thousands of miles away from NY and share your commonality with other global residents. If I am lonely, I can have this little chat with hundreds of smart NYT readers. What more could one ask for?
Like it or not, new technologies have made us what would have been considered telepathic by the standards of 1950's sci-fi. I watch pre-1990 movies and wonder "How did these people communicate?" (Pay phones) Ray Kurzweil predicts that these technologies will soon be implantable in our bodies - hard-wired to the brain - phone, pictures, maps, encyclopedias, etc . He's probably right. We are rapidly morphing into a new species. Along with climate change, how we dealt with it will be looked back upon as a defining measure of the times.
2
It's not tech that's isolated me. Just fewer friends all involved in their own thing, & me more comfortable in my depression. That's what happens to some people, I think, as they get older.
7
Mr. Brooks, the other day you wrote an essay of the death of Idealism in America, which I flunked royally, but perhaps it helped to remind me of the hero 'Le Cid' by Corneille. As children in France, we started off with La Fontaine and his moralistic fables, only at a later age, to take up the subject of Idealism.
I avoid Facebook like the plague because I do not have family, or friends who I am not able to contact by email, and I have a much greater preference for the rotary phone. This is not always requited, but I do miss the long exchanges with a close friend of many years.
Always a century behind everyone else, I finally caved in, and got an answering machine. I am probably the only American left who does not know anything about 'Twitter', but having said all this, when speaking to a friend who might ask not to tell any one, the old joke was to reply 'Only to the New York Times'.
It helps me feel connected to the world and learn about my Country Fellows. It is a way to learn other points of view, learn perhaps how to think. There is no doubt that I am addicted to the computer, reliant on it to an alarming extent, and I have taken a dislike to these little tablets that so many of us carry on us wherever we go. Usual of course, but hard to turn off.
Some acquaintances made recently do not use the computer and they tell me not to trust 'Anyone'. Some of us may reach an age where we become detached, and yet can enjoy a day in the sun with a stranger and a laugh.
I avoid Facebook like the plague because I do not have family, or friends who I am not able to contact by email, and I have a much greater preference for the rotary phone. This is not always requited, but I do miss the long exchanges with a close friend of many years.
Always a century behind everyone else, I finally caved in, and got an answering machine. I am probably the only American left who does not know anything about 'Twitter', but having said all this, when speaking to a friend who might ask not to tell any one, the old joke was to reply 'Only to the New York Times'.
It helps me feel connected to the world and learn about my Country Fellows. It is a way to learn other points of view, learn perhaps how to think. There is no doubt that I am addicted to the computer, reliant on it to an alarming extent, and I have taken a dislike to these little tablets that so many of us carry on us wherever we go. Usual of course, but hard to turn off.
Some acquaintances made recently do not use the computer and they tell me not to trust 'Anyone'. Some of us may reach an age where we become detached, and yet can enjoy a day in the sun with a stranger and a laugh.
2
David Brooks, with his usual elegant delivery is inviting us to think about an important question about us as human beings, not Facebook. It is one of many recently that scratch the surface of what technology in its current form and use really costs. Despite or maybe because of all our nifty devices and an ocean of apps, productivity as an economic statistic is down. Along with the soul searching suggested here perhaps we should take a moment to think, something each new app, device and distraction seems to make more difficult and less likely. Just because we can, doesn't always mean we should. Now I need to get back to work....
4
I enjoyed this piece very much. I'd argue that relationships aren't just fundamental to being human, they're what we are. The self isn't some irreducible thing, it's a dynamic, continually evolving collection of memories and images that are connected by stories that posit a person in a network of relationships involving other people, things and the body. So the quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our relationships and nothing else. And technology being by definition a tool will impact quality positively or negatively depending on the intention of the person using the tool. I'm with Pirsig - let's figure out this Quality thing and then we can complain about not having it.
5
Is David suggesting "social media", mainly seen as cell phone use, is an example of McLuhan's "the medium is the message"? That somehow the failure of intimacy is an unintended consequence of cell phone use?
Probably how we see cell phone use is affected by being dunned by spam and barraged by ads. These trivializations of the medium tend to make us think it is itself merely trivial, as David puts it, just "fun and diverting".
However, its use in the Arab Spring is a more sobering example, as is the Chinese government's tracking of cell phones to eliminate dissent, and our government's litigation to allow eavesdropping.
The subject is a good deal more complicated than just another opportunity for addiction or distraction.
Probably how we see cell phone use is affected by being dunned by spam and barraged by ads. These trivializations of the medium tend to make us think it is itself merely trivial, as David puts it, just "fun and diverting".
However, its use in the Arab Spring is a more sobering example, as is the Chinese government's tracking of cell phones to eliminate dissent, and our government's litigation to allow eavesdropping.
The subject is a good deal more complicated than just another opportunity for addiction or distraction.
4
The biggest change that I have noticed in the last decade or so is the decline in hospitality. Since moving to this small town 15 years ago I have made many good friends. mostly at church. Yet I have never been inside the houses of most of them. When your life is so consumed by social media and virtual living, there is not much time for entertaining.
4
Let's not blame technology David. To be sure in this case it hasn't solved any problem except keep Trump's sleepless nights full and us entertained but let's not blame the smartphone that allows me to read your thoughts anywhere and write this.
3
Like.
1
Solitude is not loneliness. For some of us it enhances our lives in many ways.
5
Can't comment now, no time, I have a in-coming cell phone call. I'll comment later.
1
IT departments are choking the life from corporations and now techies are working their magic on the heart of civilization. It is not a stretch to think this is contributing to the paranoid degeneracy of political culture.
Good article. Should be read, especially by young people. Life is a contact sport, like it or not. Yes, the new tech culture is ruining it for most. Not for me. Other than accepting that I read the Times without ink stains on my fingers and having my letters posted instantly, I use my "phone" for calls and like my reality without the "virtual" excuse. I am very glad that I learned to dance when you still "held on" to your partner and think of the admonition from my kindergarten teacher:"Hold hands and stay together children."
2
I'm reminded of the New Yorker cartoon, with two dogs sitting in front of a computer, the one saying to the other: ' On the internet nobody knows you're a dog.'
8
The technological revolution is in my view perhaps only one of the factors in this decline of intimacy and perhaps not even one of the main ones. In this culture does intimacy not require the sort of fundamental trust that is out of vogue because the experience of many does not warrant it? Whether it is for the displaced production line worker or Mrs. Clinton, experience likely supplies little justification for trusting some of the human beings with whom they have had to deal in their careers.
1
My closest friends are people I met in high school. We all live in difference cities now, but we stay in contact, and even engage in group activities via the internet. If it weren't for the internet I believe I would feel profoundly lonely.
Maybe if it were1985 we wouldn't have all left home to persue educational and employment opportunities so we wouldn't have needed the internet. But it isn't and we have so we do.
Maybe if it were1985 we wouldn't have all left home to persue educational and employment opportunities so we wouldn't have needed the internet. But it isn't and we have so we do.
1
Joe, if it were 1985 you would have left home because the job scene was just as bad then for people coming out of college or high school. The difference was that you didn't come out of school steeped in the culture of social media and most of your friends were local. You weren't pursued by bullies on social media even if your school life was horrible. Your parents didn't post "cute" pictures of you on Facebook. You could have a second chance if you moved to another area in your state or the nation. You could reinvent yourself to some degree.
6
Yeah, I didn't come out of high school steeped in the culture of social media, and my friends were people I met in person at school in the 1990s. We were lucky enough that we parted phyical company as technology began to emerge that allowed us to meaningfully interact over long distances.
David, that "6 billion people" reference is also just a fond memory...it's 7 billion.
3
Weeks before a presidential election between a mad man and a perfectly qualified woman, and Brooks offers yet another column of faux psychology, replete with unproven assumptions and dreary "sky is falling" pontifications.
Rome burns, Brooks churns.
Rome burns, Brooks churns.
5
I largely agree with the observations made by David Brooks (and others) on this topic.
But then again, I read this article on my iPhone.
But then again, I read this article on my iPhone.
1
I have a great friend who begged me to try Twitter when I kept resisting. I finally tried, out of loyalty and the possibility that I was missing something I'd enjoy. I was instantly "followed" by several (odd) people I didn't know, and I couldn't imagine how or why they were following me. I closed my account. David Brooks is right this time. And so probably is Marshall McLuhan.
1
A good indicator of advancing age and hardening of the arteries is the belief that the world is going to Hell! Newsflash, David. The world is changing. Change, contrary to your myopic GOP view is not always for the worse, but it is different. Don't worry it will work itself out, as others adjust to include social networks into their worlds. Pundit superiority is fairly unproductive, unless you have to fill column inches!
5
You know, Jack, a comment about age like the one you make is another form of shaming and bullying that marks a weak ability to make a point, no point to make, or even a decency deficit. I don't think people who use such disgusting methods of argument in public should get away with it unremarked, just as they shouldn't get away with calling women pigs. I hope you live to a ripe old age and get a little wiser. It would serve you right to be old and sound of mind, only to have younger people criticize your views on the basis that your age is a mental disability. It's despicable, Jack.
I don't know. My kids, in their early 30s, are hardly "of advancing age" and use technology all the time, all day long in their jobs. And we often communicate by text during the day and play Scrabble online with each other. But both remember the days when they did NOT have smart phones and when a clunky old desktop on the kitchen desk was the only computer in the house, mostly used like a typewriter! And both think the slavish devotion people have to their devices is not healthy, especially for kids.
1
Regrettably, people have to be online these days maintaining their virtual public presence in some way or another, just as they used to maintain their neighborhood and work presence through socializing.
These days, if Findagrave.com says you've departed, you ain't here (and there's a very long, nebulous, unresponsive process that may or may not work to correct an error) and if you want work or promotions, you can't apply for a job except over the internet, knowing that many/most employers will check your online presence.
This follows on the long-time use of credit reports that could be full of erroneous information, which are used to qualify people to move to better schools/neighborhoods, as well as for employment opportunities, as well as for specialized online discounts that people who purchase in-store never see.
This ignores the various information/marketing companies that decide their new business model is to take your business name, or your personal profile, and populate their new database with what they think might be pretty close to your information, then it's up to you to find out where they have input errors (gross or minor) and get those errors corrected - usually by signing up to join their service.
We wouldn't be having these battles, and spending time doing online protective offense maneuvering, if we in the U.S. followed the European model of privacy protection.
These days, if Findagrave.com says you've departed, you ain't here (and there's a very long, nebulous, unresponsive process that may or may not work to correct an error) and if you want work or promotions, you can't apply for a job except over the internet, knowing that many/most employers will check your online presence.
This follows on the long-time use of credit reports that could be full of erroneous information, which are used to qualify people to move to better schools/neighborhoods, as well as for employment opportunities, as well as for specialized online discounts that people who purchase in-store never see.
This ignores the various information/marketing companies that decide their new business model is to take your business name, or your personal profile, and populate their new database with what they think might be pretty close to your information, then it's up to you to find out where they have input errors (gross or minor) and get those errors corrected - usually by signing up to join their service.
We wouldn't be having these battles, and spending time doing online protective offense maneuvering, if we in the U.S. followed the European model of privacy protection.
8
btw - Your electronic resume will be read and rejected/accepted by a machine, your work supervisor and co-workers and friends communicate by text and since so many news pieces are written by machine these days:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/story-by-a-human/4...
with projections fully 90% of journalism by 2030 will be machine-written, fewer and fewer columns such as this will be appearing.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/story-by-a-human/4...
with projections fully 90% of journalism by 2030 will be machine-written, fewer and fewer columns such as this will be appearing.
1
A decade ago almost no one had a smartphone, but how many hours did they spend in front of a TV? And how many people spend so much time in front of TV screens today? Particularly millennials? It’s like those old studies on suicide that found that societies had a roughly equivalent index of violence, but the U.S. expressed it in gun violence while Sweden expressed it in suicides. Perhaps our need to be artificially engaged remains pretty constant but the variety of means to do that simply evolves.
Then, I’d suggest that with all the social media available, people may be interacting more than they ever have before – both on a one-to-one basis and on a one-to-many basis. Thirty years ago, how much opportunity did two friends or even acquaintances have to conduct hourlong conversations on a phone while they were commuting to work or driving the kids to school? Happens all the time today – I’m constantly dodging the engaged in my car.
What I see out there is an EXTREMELY high degree of engagement, just not face-to-face; and from the snippets of conversation I overhear or the entries I see on the Facebook pages of family members who use it extensively (all of them), it seems to me that intimacy hasn’t suffered a lot – if anything the willingness to share it seems to have gone retail by having its convenience so vastly improved.
When some are addicted to online life, the whole thing strikes me as profoundly satisfying to a ton of people.
Then, I’d suggest that with all the social media available, people may be interacting more than they ever have before – both on a one-to-one basis and on a one-to-many basis. Thirty years ago, how much opportunity did two friends or even acquaintances have to conduct hourlong conversations on a phone while they were commuting to work or driving the kids to school? Happens all the time today – I’m constantly dodging the engaged in my car.
What I see out there is an EXTREMELY high degree of engagement, just not face-to-face; and from the snippets of conversation I overhear or the entries I see on the Facebook pages of family members who use it extensively (all of them), it seems to me that intimacy hasn’t suffered a lot – if anything the willingness to share it seems to have gone retail by having its convenience so vastly improved.
When some are addicted to online life, the whole thing strikes me as profoundly satisfying to a ton of people.
5
How much of the supposed intimacy is superficial in nature?
8
Kevin:
How much supposed intimacy has ever been OTHER than superficial in nature?
How much supposed intimacy has ever been OTHER than superficial in nature?
2
I get together for coffee fairly regularly with a group of casual friends/acquaintances. Sometimes we get into a stimulating discussion. Mostly we talk about what our kids are up to. Online I find I can cut to the chase, and quickly get immersed in a philosophical discussion, or one about art & culture. Doesn't happen enough in real life.
2
"As Stephen Marche put it in The Atlantic in 2012, “Using social media doesn’t create new social networks; it just transfers established networks from one platform to another.”
Great point. Back in the day (sounding like grandma), any professional or average Joe, had to determine the best way to reach someone: phone, mail (yes!!), or email. Now the platforms are more diverse, with IM, texting, social media, old-fashioned phone, and slow mail for the lawyers.
But I think use of smart phones and other devices has different forms of addiction based on generations. Yes, the young are growing up with technology unlike those of us who have had to adapt from typewriters to tablets. As for deep friendships, I think society is as much responsible for people's reluctance to engage deeply. The superficiality of social media "friendships" almost becomes an excuse to avoid intimacy--because intimacy sometimes means admitting weaknesses.
Social media isn't designed for that. Can you imagine posting on FB that you're in the throes of a deep depression? FB represents a false, happy world of one-ups-manship and peons to love, a catalogue of people's travels and adventures. Twitter, which I don't use, seems like a dangerous addiction that gets people like Trump, with poor impulse control, into trouble.
Making and keeping intimate friends takes hard work. And discipline. And the humility to ask others for advice.
Great point. Back in the day (sounding like grandma), any professional or average Joe, had to determine the best way to reach someone: phone, mail (yes!!), or email. Now the platforms are more diverse, with IM, texting, social media, old-fashioned phone, and slow mail for the lawyers.
But I think use of smart phones and other devices has different forms of addiction based on generations. Yes, the young are growing up with technology unlike those of us who have had to adapt from typewriters to tablets. As for deep friendships, I think society is as much responsible for people's reluctance to engage deeply. The superficiality of social media "friendships" almost becomes an excuse to avoid intimacy--because intimacy sometimes means admitting weaknesses.
Social media isn't designed for that. Can you imagine posting on FB that you're in the throes of a deep depression? FB represents a false, happy world of one-ups-manship and peons to love, a catalogue of people's travels and adventures. Twitter, which I don't use, seems like a dangerous addiction that gets people like Trump, with poor impulse control, into trouble.
Making and keeping intimate friends takes hard work. And discipline. And the humility to ask others for advice.
69
Christine
Maybe you made a point "Making and keeping intimate friends takes hard work."
It should not take hard work to engage, support, share joy and grief, and all that goes into friendship to keep intimate friends. Perhaps that is why people are turning to electronics. They don't want to do something else that they would consider "work" - they think they're already overworked.
Maybe you made a point "Making and keeping intimate friends takes hard work."
It should not take hard work to engage, support, share joy and grief, and all that goes into friendship to keep intimate friends. Perhaps that is why people are turning to electronics. They don't want to do something else that they would consider "work" - they think they're already overworked.
Ms. Morrow, As I approach my 72nd lap around the sun (many thanks to Neal deGrass Tyson for that metaphor), I am one of the holdout for intimate connectivity with friends and family. In the course of my career in advertising and marketing, I have had to relocate more often than I liked. But those relocations never interrupted the great relationships of my life. I am lucky to have several friends with whom we share the "everything" Brooks mentioned.
Trust is a big part of our bond of friendship and kinship. Our innermost thoughts, feelings and reflections are on the table when there is no fear of judegement. While I am not a user of social media in any form, emailing and phone calls on a relatively frequent basis allows us to continue the chatter that informs, and confirms, our relationships. It may be on the phone, or on Skype or FaceTime. When separated by 1500 miles, these tools come in handy.
The very fact that I can read this article and write this missive means I have a computer. I also have an iPhone for business and pleasure. As a journalist (and former magazine editor) I will eventually purchase an iPad to work offsite on stories and my own Great American Novel.
Still, with all these tools and my disposal, email and texting cannot provide voice inflection and tone. Intimacy can be too easily lost in the cold darkness of the internet and social media.
Trust is a big part of our bond of friendship and kinship. Our innermost thoughts, feelings and reflections are on the table when there is no fear of judegement. While I am not a user of social media in any form, emailing and phone calls on a relatively frequent basis allows us to continue the chatter that informs, and confirms, our relationships. It may be on the phone, or on Skype or FaceTime. When separated by 1500 miles, these tools come in handy.
The very fact that I can read this article and write this missive means I have a computer. I also have an iPhone for business and pleasure. As a journalist (and former magazine editor) I will eventually purchase an iPad to work offsite on stories and my own Great American Novel.
Still, with all these tools and my disposal, email and texting cannot provide voice inflection and tone. Intimacy can be too easily lost in the cold darkness of the internet and social media.
1
I see FB posts in my circle of "friends" which do admit to having a bad day or being depressed or whatever, but these statements are often reduced to Twitter-size posts and are obliquely phrased, seemingly posted to generate as many "praying for you," "what's wrong," "hoping things change" comments as possible. It's all quite tiresome and makes me contemplate pulling my FB account. That and the "Look at me; I'm traveling here, there and everywhere and my life is perfect and so are my kids and grandkids, blah, blah" commentaries.
The only reason I don't is for the crafting groups I belong to and the creativity they inspire.
The only reason I don't is for the crafting groups I belong to and the creativity they inspire.
The research is in for social media --- it's bad for your mental health:
People who go without Facebook for just one week report being significantly happier overall simply because they are more present.
Social media such as Twitter decreases one's open-mindedness and insulates one's worldviews and reinforces pre-existing ideas based on who one 'follows'.
Facebook use is heavily linked to depression – and is largely attributed to 'social comparison' theory --- too much comparing oneself to others is psychologically destructive.
Heavy social media users are more likely to have overall poor mental health, psychological distress (anxiety and depression), suicidal thoughts and unmet mental health needs.
FROM http://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2015/12/your-brain-on-facebook-4...
It turns out that happiness comes from good old-fashioned mindful interaction with humans and nature.
"The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness. " - Abraham Maslow
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” - Alan Watts
As Henry David Thoreau said "the meeting of two eternities, the past and future...is precisely the present moment".
Being in the 'here and now' is the greatest agent of joy and happiness - and it's free !
People who go without Facebook for just one week report being significantly happier overall simply because they are more present.
Social media such as Twitter decreases one's open-mindedness and insulates one's worldviews and reinforces pre-existing ideas based on who one 'follows'.
Facebook use is heavily linked to depression – and is largely attributed to 'social comparison' theory --- too much comparing oneself to others is psychologically destructive.
Heavy social media users are more likely to have overall poor mental health, psychological distress (anxiety and depression), suicidal thoughts and unmet mental health needs.
FROM http://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2015/12/your-brain-on-facebook-4...
It turns out that happiness comes from good old-fashioned mindful interaction with humans and nature.
"The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness. " - Abraham Maslow
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” - Alan Watts
As Henry David Thoreau said "the meeting of two eternities, the past and future...is precisely the present moment".
Being in the 'here and now' is the greatest agent of joy and happiness - and it's free !
309
Socrates, I like your last line about presence being free! Would we be free of the presence of certain politicians, who are great examples of the annoying overuse of distracting social media "platforms"!
27
but social media is essential for many businesses.
& I can say although I check my phone regularly throughout the day, it's mostly to read the Times.
in other words- your fault!
& I can say although I check my phone regularly throughout the day, it's mostly to read the Times.
in other words- your fault!
2
Socrates - In beautiful downtown Verona
... and to continue the quotes, Richard Alpert (Ram Das) said succinctly in 1971, "Be Here Now".
... and to continue the quotes, Richard Alpert (Ram Das) said succinctly in 1971, "Be Here Now".
1
I got off Facebook when I realized that it actually works against intimacy: it replaced the long, thoughtful email letters that I used to exchange with good friends, into superficial updates on our respective lives. You don't want to be intimate with all your ffbs, and that constrains communication. --That, and the fact the fb is the Actual Big Brother.
42
But here's the other side of the coin: During my life, I have made friendships with many people who then moved away. I did some moving myself.
We are now a very mobile society. Some of these former friends I lost touch with, maybe because I lost them before the advent of social media. Some of them I have re-connected with THANKS to email and social media.
A couple of my best friends don't live near me. We see each other every year or so. Meanwhile, we talk on line.
We are now a very mobile society. Some of these former friends I lost touch with, maybe because I lost them before the advent of social media. Some of them I have re-connected with THANKS to email and social media.
A couple of my best friends don't live near me. We see each other every year or so. Meanwhile, we talk on line.
85
Yes Thomas I have had several very good friends that I could tell everything to. And they moved away and although I still have contact with them, sharing deepest secrets is not one of the things that occurs between us anymore.'
I also have other very good friends that I can tell anything to (at least three) but the problem is we are all so busy from activities of daily living (family and work,etc) that we rarely have time to share intimacies.
I also have other very good friends that I can tell anything to (at least three) but the problem is we are all so busy from activities of daily living (family and work,etc) that we rarely have time to share intimacies.
As with many of Brooks' columns, you must either be for it or against it. I myself have no Facebook, nor Twitter, nor Instagram. I get on fairly well without them and though I am occasionally tempted to open a Facebook account I seldom think about it. On the other hand I know many people who seem to manage these things just fine. They are measured, thoughtful people who use the technological tools at their disposal with care. They seem on the whole, no more or less happy than me.
That said, there are some real issues here and I think, more than anything, they have to do with an as yet undiscovered etiquette surrounding usage. I recently scolded my daughter (gently) for replying to a text in the middle of our conversation. I demonstrated how rude it would be if, in the middle of a conversation with her, I suddenly turned to a third party and began a new dialog that didn't include her. I suggested that if such a thing were necessary then it should be precipitated by a polite, "excuse me - I have to take this", or, "I'm sorry, can you hold that thought for a second - this is urgent". Of course, I pointed out that "urgency" should be the rationale for such behavior and acknowledgement of the distraction was required. She got it. It's just plain decency.
There are other issues, of course, but this one really gets under my skin. It's not the technology per se. It's that the technology has allowed us to forget our manners.
That said, there are some real issues here and I think, more than anything, they have to do with an as yet undiscovered etiquette surrounding usage. I recently scolded my daughter (gently) for replying to a text in the middle of our conversation. I demonstrated how rude it would be if, in the middle of a conversation with her, I suddenly turned to a third party and began a new dialog that didn't include her. I suggested that if such a thing were necessary then it should be precipitated by a polite, "excuse me - I have to take this", or, "I'm sorry, can you hold that thought for a second - this is urgent". Of course, I pointed out that "urgency" should be the rationale for such behavior and acknowledgement of the distraction was required. She got it. It's just plain decency.
There are other issues, of course, but this one really gets under my skin. It's not the technology per se. It's that the technology has allowed us to forget our manners.
206
Your daughter was also taking time away from her relationship with you.
We now record video and fast-forward through commercials. In the past, we used the time to connect with our 'significant others'. Often family and friends now use the TV time to catch up on their messages and emails. These new device-driven habits change the nature of our shared television watching.
We now record video and fast-forward through commercials. In the past, we used the time to connect with our 'significant others'. Often family and friends now use the TV time to catch up on their messages and emails. These new device-driven habits change the nature of our shared television watching.
Glen, I absolutely agree with you about manners, decency and rudeness. It seems as though the first two are diminishing commodities, offset by a growth in the third.
I find that technology tends to magnify trends; it speeds things up and exacerbates them. If you use technology wisely, it's terrific; if you do not, it creates problems that are hard to reverse. This is true whether we are talking about social media or workplace technologies. The key ingredient is "wisdom."
I find that technology tends to magnify trends; it speeds things up and exacerbates them. If you use technology wisely, it's terrific; if you do not, it creates problems that are hard to reverse. This is true whether we are talking about social media or workplace technologies. The key ingredient is "wisdom."
2
The technology does not "allow" bad behavior - it is just an outlet that can be used for bad behavior, just like picking your nose.
On the other hand, the cell phone can be useful in conversation, for example, to look up a definition that has come up, or to find out when a movie is on that has come up, or to show a picture of an event of interest to all.
The cell phone is not necessarily inimical to conversation, nor to friendship. It can not only augment conversation, but bring it about.
On the other hand, the cell phone can be useful in conversation, for example, to look up a definition that has come up, or to find out when a movie is on that has come up, or to show a picture of an event of interest to all.
The cell phone is not necessarily inimical to conversation, nor to friendship. It can not only augment conversation, but bring it about.
1
Yeah. There is something annoying about looking around a subway car and seeing everyone staring into a screen. Why is this annoying? Probably because I'm a bit of a grump. What if they were all playing checkers? I'd probably be annoyed because of the noise or the conversation. Let's face it. I'm a somewhat grumpy subway rider. I'm not a big fan of being underground in a metal or concrete tube stuffed with humanity and a few rodents.
I also dislike those who keep their phone next to them on a dinner table. What? Are you expecting a call from your oncologist with news on your malignant tumor? But, I find that if I'm engaged and on my game I can outcompete the phone for the attention of my friend, and maybe even make fun of my friend for being a phone-zombie.
We all have to up our game. We're competing for the affections of everybody all the time. My best friends are always in the moment. If they are not, I get bored with them and drift away. Their loss. Superficial people and superficial friends have been with us forever. Read most any book and you'll see. Now-a-days the superficial have the attribute of an 18" stare, ca. 45º down from horizontal. Are they playing candy crush? Are they reading Bronte? Are they posting a kitten photo? Are they checking FB™. It kinda makes a difference.
Add to all this, Mr. Brooks sets a high bar. My friendships must be compared to the one between Montaigne and Boetie? That's just not fair.
I also dislike those who keep their phone next to them on a dinner table. What? Are you expecting a call from your oncologist with news on your malignant tumor? But, I find that if I'm engaged and on my game I can outcompete the phone for the attention of my friend, and maybe even make fun of my friend for being a phone-zombie.
We all have to up our game. We're competing for the affections of everybody all the time. My best friends are always in the moment. If they are not, I get bored with them and drift away. Their loss. Superficial people and superficial friends have been with us forever. Read most any book and you'll see. Now-a-days the superficial have the attribute of an 18" stare, ca. 45º down from horizontal. Are they playing candy crush? Are they reading Bronte? Are they posting a kitten photo? Are they checking FB™. It kinda makes a difference.
Add to all this, Mr. Brooks sets a high bar. My friendships must be compared to the one between Montaigne and Boetie? That's just not fair.
43
Hey David!!! Great. One of your best for quite a while. This is for real. Your reference to Louis C.K. was perfect.
And you know, It all started with air conditioning.
Imagine, today's Madonna would not be giving a mysterious, provocative smile to Leonardo. She would be talking to her sister of the I-phone.
And you know, It all started with air conditioning.
Imagine, today's Madonna would not be giving a mysterious, provocative smile to Leonardo. She would be talking to her sister of the I-phone.
6
Since I am a writer, I have a cell phone, but not a smart phone. To have my private space continually interrupted by superficial phone calls is anathema to my needs as a writer: to sit in a still place with my thoughts and imagination set free is what I need. I had a smart phone for a short while, but it became an annoyance, so I ditched it and got a cell phone just for emergency use. I kept my line phone as a business line. I'm not a Luddite, just a person who cherishes his privacy.
26
How do we receive fewer superficial calls on a cell phone than on a smartphone?
I don't use my phone because of "the fear of missing out". I use it for the same reason you, dear reader, use it: I'm bored and I'm lazy. If Brooks had been thinking and had been more honest with his readers, he would have admitted that most of his clicks come from people who really should have better things to do.
41
Becoming a close friend and confident takes time. You might have clicked the moment you laid eyes on each other, but you are not about to open your heart and soul to them on first acquaintance. You see each other in differing situations, you come to know their quirks and you know without being told the mood the friend is exhibiting may not always be the truth.
I don't use Facebook or Twitter or anything else. I use my phone for calls and texting with my great-grandson. I suppose I could find friends on Facebook, but it won't be the same as the last close friend I lost to death.
Getting old has its drawbacks.
I don't use Facebook or Twitter or anything else. I use my phone for calls and texting with my great-grandson. I suppose I could find friends on Facebook, but it won't be the same as the last close friend I lost to death.
Getting old has its drawbacks.
5
Effect of internet, computer/phone on friendships?
I grew up prior to the internet, therefore was prepared for "Friendship on Internet". I learned growing up that exactitude, honesty, clarity, profundity is appreciated most precisely where speech/written word is less, thus profound societal development of math/technology and complete decline of literature. I learned growing up "Say the right things or be ostracized". With computers this relationship circle is even more deeply closed: Increased exactitude in math/technology and everyone online where "Say the right thing or be ostracized" is more efficient to point where one would not know how much one is being ostracized, marginalized, censored, manipulated, managed, controlled...
In the U.S. today we have an emphasis on what is called STEM in school, but this is perfectly compatible with bible babble and assorted nonsense speech of right wing and left wing pap and complete ruination of a man such as Alec Baldwin who went from Red October to apparently desperately fitting into left wing orthodoxy to salvage career. Shallow speech, shallow friendship, the orthodox politically is promoted on internet. Profound friendship, profound speech is probably prevented from occurring. No dangerous combinations, associations between persons, allowed! sayeth political orthodoxy. I used to be pretty good at avoiding teachers and principals in schools and later in life hiding out in bookstores. Now they got me where they want me....
I grew up prior to the internet, therefore was prepared for "Friendship on Internet". I learned growing up that exactitude, honesty, clarity, profundity is appreciated most precisely where speech/written word is less, thus profound societal development of math/technology and complete decline of literature. I learned growing up "Say the right things or be ostracized". With computers this relationship circle is even more deeply closed: Increased exactitude in math/technology and everyone online where "Say the right thing or be ostracized" is more efficient to point where one would not know how much one is being ostracized, marginalized, censored, manipulated, managed, controlled...
In the U.S. today we have an emphasis on what is called STEM in school, but this is perfectly compatible with bible babble and assorted nonsense speech of right wing and left wing pap and complete ruination of a man such as Alec Baldwin who went from Red October to apparently desperately fitting into left wing orthodoxy to salvage career. Shallow speech, shallow friendship, the orthodox politically is promoted on internet. Profound friendship, profound speech is probably prevented from occurring. No dangerous combinations, associations between persons, allowed! sayeth political orthodoxy. I used to be pretty good at avoiding teachers and principals in schools and later in life hiding out in bookstores. Now they got me where they want me....
2
Checking our phones 221 times a day? Not I. Maybe twice, and some days not at all. It's nice to see a nationally recognized columnist taking up this issue. But MIT's Sherry Turkle has been hard at work on this for more than 20 years.
8
What's a smartphone?
23
Portable computer.
2
Thing thing that helps you avoid actually having to know anything.
I don't think "social media" is the problem here. It is a symptom. The trivialization of life seen in reality TV, the decline of the media, also finds its way to social media. To some degree it is about distraction from issues one doesn't want to face. And to some degree it is the lack of vision and imagination about what could be.
There is no reason that social media should serve only as distraction and even destruction, as has happened to much of TV and radio, and most of politics. It could be put to good use, improving our understanding of each other and expanding our vision of what is human.
There is no reason that social media should serve only as distraction and even destruction, as has happened to much of TV and radio, and most of politics. It could be put to good use, improving our understanding of each other and expanding our vision of what is human.
3
I suppose there are people who would prefer being on-line to real relationships.
But I found that what killed the community spirit and close friendships, in my area at least, had a lot more to do with work than with phones.
No one in my neighborhood is home during the day. No kids play outside after school - they are in day care. We don't have friendships because no one is here. I made great friends - scads of them - when I was young, but the implosion of the industry scattered them, and we lost touch. Our current model is that people move to where the jobs are. People don't stay in one locale, so we make new friends over and over. Confidants become fewer.
I lost touch with a lot of people who moved. I made friends as my children grew, but lost touch with them as we all went back to work, and had no free time, trying to stuff a week's worth of errands and work into two days, while shuttling kids to various commitments. Those of us in professional jobs don't get off work at five, and many of us commute more than an hour a day, leaving little time to coach ball or join a league.
We don't live in the same world that existed when I was a kid, with Dads getting off their trains at 5:45. Social media may be the only way many of us scattered friends have a chance to re-connect.
But I found that what killed the community spirit and close friendships, in my area at least, had a lot more to do with work than with phones.
No one in my neighborhood is home during the day. No kids play outside after school - they are in day care. We don't have friendships because no one is here. I made great friends - scads of them - when I was young, but the implosion of the industry scattered them, and we lost touch. Our current model is that people move to where the jobs are. People don't stay in one locale, so we make new friends over and over. Confidants become fewer.
I lost touch with a lot of people who moved. I made friends as my children grew, but lost touch with them as we all went back to work, and had no free time, trying to stuff a week's worth of errands and work into two days, while shuttling kids to various commitments. Those of us in professional jobs don't get off work at five, and many of us commute more than an hour a day, leaving little time to coach ball or join a league.
We don't live in the same world that existed when I was a kid, with Dads getting off their trains at 5:45. Social media may be the only way many of us scattered friends have a chance to re-connect.
485
As one of the last adults at home during the day, I can't recommend this enough. Most frightening to me was driving home one afternoon on a sparkling autumn day, weather that was a gift from God--and no. children. were outdoors in our neighborhood: they were all indoors on the computer or in front of The Box. At the risk of sounding like a fogey, we watched plenty of tv growing up but we also played kickball after school. Facebook and the internet have eaten our lives, and it's frightening.
3
Yes! Cathy, thank you for your contribution. Every time a close friend leaves a soul-crushing job and moves to take a much better one, I am simultaneously overjoyed and saddened.
One's community and confidants are no longer those who are geographically close. I wish I could sit in my best friend's living room to discuss life over tea and knitting, but she lives across the country. I settle for texts, phone calls, and Skype.
One's community and confidants are no longer those who are geographically close. I wish I could sit in my best friend's living room to discuss life over tea and knitting, but she lives across the country. I settle for texts, phone calls, and Skype.
1
Good points, and I would add that long working hours also make it harder to participate in after-work activities, which might lead to friendships.
Did the editors even consider omitting the message below the line at the end --for just this once??
14
I have been on a fewer time on cell mission since I moved to Chicago in 1996. It has been a long battle and last month I was told my pay to play cell phone service for the year had come to an end and I had used $44 dollars of my $100 allotment and I needed to pay a hundred dollars to continue the service for another year but I would start the year with $156 balance. Last year was unusual and I fully expect when the year is over the $100 dollar fee to play will give me a $240 opening balance.
Last month my wife chastised me after a long harangue I gave my nephew about his need to escape his cell phone for maybe 20 minutes a day. It is a losing battle but it is not the cell phone that is the enemy. It is the economic system and the neoliberals and the conservatives who have convinced us that life is a constant struggle and competition. These days when my wife and I go out to the backyard to watch the bird feeders we often forget to take the phone with us much to the chagrin of friends and family.
Yesterday when we went to the doctor for our annual physical we talked about the stress in our lives. When the doctor suggested a few minutes of meditation a day my wife said scornfully we didn't have the time for self indulgence and then I admitted that we spent much of our time watching the birds, squirrels, the trees and actually enjoyed doing nothing.
David,
It is not the cell phone that is the problem it is that people like yourself that have turned quiet time into a crime.
Last month my wife chastised me after a long harangue I gave my nephew about his need to escape his cell phone for maybe 20 minutes a day. It is a losing battle but it is not the cell phone that is the enemy. It is the economic system and the neoliberals and the conservatives who have convinced us that life is a constant struggle and competition. These days when my wife and I go out to the backyard to watch the bird feeders we often forget to take the phone with us much to the chagrin of friends and family.
Yesterday when we went to the doctor for our annual physical we talked about the stress in our lives. When the doctor suggested a few minutes of meditation a day my wife said scornfully we didn't have the time for self indulgence and then I admitted that we spent much of our time watching the birds, squirrels, the trees and actually enjoyed doing nothing.
David,
It is not the cell phone that is the problem it is that people like yourself that have turned quiet time into a crime.
11
David I find your pontification essays filled with amusing irony, today's was no exception. You advocate the need for more social interaction and utilize a powerful quote from Montaigne. Yet when Montaigne was 38 he decided to isolate himself in the tower of his chateau, where locked himself up with his books, and was a virtual recluse for almost 10 years.
36
Everybody is on the phone, but we're still all alone.
No exit.
No exit.
6
It is the great turning inward, and it is not only through the use of mobile devices and smartphones. It is also evidenced by how we pair-bond and isolate ourselves. A college-educated person has a 0% chance of meeting and marrying someone without a college degree, further concentrating that person in a homogeneous community of similarly-educated, competitive people in the same neighborhoods, with the same turbo-charged schools to "nurture" their offspring, far from the crime that festers among the dysfunctional who rarely interact with that achievement-oriented world.
200 years ago the wealthy were exposed to many of the same hardships of life as the poor in areas like safety and health. Today, they may never cross paths with someone who lives at the margins; and, if they do, it is an episodic and chance encounter that might be mediated by a small charitable contribution or an afternoon delivering meals at a soup kitchen.
Our children may have long lists of "friends", but I will guarantee that those acquaintances are a largely homogeneous bunch with a weird prowler or two patrolling the edge of that list looking for a vulnerable or unguarded kid. In the meanwhile, their parents live in reasonably closed bubbles of friendships, work associates, and social venues that are roped off by their economic means.
Community, as we knew it through our neighborhoods, towns, and churches is in retreat. Smartphones are merely one more enabler or accelerant of that fact.
200 years ago the wealthy were exposed to many of the same hardships of life as the poor in areas like safety and health. Today, they may never cross paths with someone who lives at the margins; and, if they do, it is an episodic and chance encounter that might be mediated by a small charitable contribution or an afternoon delivering meals at a soup kitchen.
Our children may have long lists of "friends", but I will guarantee that those acquaintances are a largely homogeneous bunch with a weird prowler or two patrolling the edge of that list looking for a vulnerable or unguarded kid. In the meanwhile, their parents live in reasonably closed bubbles of friendships, work associates, and social venues that are roped off by their economic means.
Community, as we knew it through our neighborhoods, towns, and churches is in retreat. Smartphones are merely one more enabler or accelerant of that fact.
17
I just got my first chordless phone. I am decades in the past. I feel as lonely as I ever have.
5
Mr. Brooks article is a cogent criticism of our obsession with social media. Certainly face to face contact with other human beings is better for a wide range of emotional and moral reasons.
However, to the extent that social media augments, rather than supplant human interaction, it is a good thing. We can extend our connections across vast chasms of geography and culture. We can reconnect with our past, refining our understanding of ourselves and others.
Using a new tool wisely takes time, practice, and adherence to social virtue.
However, to the extent that social media augments, rather than supplant human interaction, it is a good thing. We can extend our connections across vast chasms of geography and culture. We can reconnect with our past, refining our understanding of ourselves and others.
Using a new tool wisely takes time, practice, and adherence to social virtue.
70
Every person Brooks cites is a middle-age white male. Didn't Mr. Brooks earlier this year commit to broadening his horizons and breaking free of his bubble? On this topic in particular, it seems doing so would be particularly useful.
6
Methinks thou dost protest too much, O Brooks, most of whose readers consume your ramblings online.
4
The ongoing War between his Ramblings and our Scribbles?
1
I believe we best learn to socialize as children by playing with other children face to face, preferably without adult supervision. It is probably like language with a limited window of opportunity for the brain to learn the social skills and intelligences that allow us to joyfully and sometimes angrily interact constructively and build meaningful relationships.
Helicopter parenting where children spend their "free" hours being shuttled from one adult supervised activity to another (often to develop a child's competitive abilities) are fine, up to a point- but children need the chance to invent their own rules and deal with social problems without being able to take every issue to "parent court".
The time children spend on phones and computer can at least be creative, without adults making all the rules, but without eye contact, that is, face to face communication, it's probably like trying to learn how to dance without music.
Helicopter parenting where children spend their "free" hours being shuttled from one adult supervised activity to another (often to develop a child's competitive abilities) are fine, up to a point- but children need the chance to invent their own rules and deal with social problems without being able to take every issue to "parent court".
The time children spend on phones and computer can at least be creative, without adults making all the rules, but without eye contact, that is, face to face communication, it's probably like trying to learn how to dance without music.
21
What I often see is the faces of parents and their children glued to their respective electronic devices: parents lost in their iphones; toddlers hovering over ipads. Online life is more disruptive to family relations for children since such a young age that it makes worries over adult friendships seem like a luxury.
Our online existence is shaped largely by environments trying to win competition for some of our attention so they can be the place where someone can sell us something. A space where no one can sell us anything, such as the space of solitude, is wasted, unclaimed territory waiting to be occupied and used by someone to make some money. If we are trained to shun and fear solitude, we are more available as customers. If we are rewarded for splitting our attention between multiple activities and do not develop or value the ability to give undivided attention to something for a longer period, we are more available as customers.
The development and implementation of these technologies that change the ways our minds and social interactions work, is determined by a competition for size and profitability, not by the good or bad things they do to us. Bad things are controlled, sometimes, by exhortations and after-the-fact laws; cellphone use while driving is condemned as dangerous and can yield a ticket, but the technology can be deployed before we have safeguards in place against abuse.
We do not know enough to guide our social evolution, but we know enough to understand that the market will not guide it -- except to assure that market thinking can penetrate to all aspects of life and society. To the extent that markets and competition for attention succeed in this penetration, we will lose parts of our humanity.
The development and implementation of these technologies that change the ways our minds and social interactions work, is determined by a competition for size and profitability, not by the good or bad things they do to us. Bad things are controlled, sometimes, by exhortations and after-the-fact laws; cellphone use while driving is condemned as dangerous and can yield a ticket, but the technology can be deployed before we have safeguards in place against abuse.
We do not know enough to guide our social evolution, but we know enough to understand that the market will not guide it -- except to assure that market thinking can penetrate to all aspects of life and society. To the extent that markets and competition for attention succeed in this penetration, we will lose parts of our humanity.
27
Yes, indeed. Much of the trivialization of TV, news, and many other activities can be traced to misuse for commercial activity, polluting the mental as well as the physical environment, misallocating thought and effort. Social media is being perverted the same way.
4
Sda:
HA! "...market will not guide it -- except to assure that market thinking can penetrate to all aspects of life...."
Indeed. And that gets to the crux of it doesn't it? We live within a Capitalistic society. It should not be surprising that this "thinking" is dominant. I am an American. But I grew up a military brat and so lived mostly outside the U.S. When I finished High School (in Taipei, Taiwan) I came back to this country and experienced it as a young adult for the first time. The thing that struck me, besides the novelty of being able to unhesitantly drink tap-water (heh), was that advertising adorned everything, everywhere. Every free space was, and is, slathered with commerce. Hell, even the people wore advertising, and did so (and still do) blithely. I was amazed by this. I still am. It reflected a certain level of commercial power, without question, but to my mind it came at a price.
People related to each other thru that lens of commerce. And it's a dull lens when it comes to the interpersonal. It is little wonder that folks are beginning to complain about social media as an interpersonal space. But what do we expect? After all, it's really nothing more than virtual commercial space, designed to hustle you whatever it is the owners of it are trying to sell. Friendship is far down on that particular list.
Don't get me wrong, there may be a place for it. But it is not central to my life. I just turn it off.
John~
American Net'Zen
HA! "...market will not guide it -- except to assure that market thinking can penetrate to all aspects of life...."
Indeed. And that gets to the crux of it doesn't it? We live within a Capitalistic society. It should not be surprising that this "thinking" is dominant. I am an American. But I grew up a military brat and so lived mostly outside the U.S. When I finished High School (in Taipei, Taiwan) I came back to this country and experienced it as a young adult for the first time. The thing that struck me, besides the novelty of being able to unhesitantly drink tap-water (heh), was that advertising adorned everything, everywhere. Every free space was, and is, slathered with commerce. Hell, even the people wore advertising, and did so (and still do) blithely. I was amazed by this. I still am. It reflected a certain level of commercial power, without question, but to my mind it came at a price.
People related to each other thru that lens of commerce. And it's a dull lens when it comes to the interpersonal. It is little wonder that folks are beginning to complain about social media as an interpersonal space. But what do we expect? After all, it's really nothing more than virtual commercial space, designed to hustle you whatever it is the owners of it are trying to sell. Friendship is far down on that particular list.
Don't get me wrong, there may be a place for it. But it is not central to my life. I just turn it off.
John~
American Net'Zen
1
There is nothing to prevent anyone from creating "quality friendships" with others, but it does take hard work and exertion of effort to make high quality friendships.
Technology is only a tool that can make it easier to make quality friendships, but ultimately, one has to want to create such friendships first.
Technology is only a tool that can make it easier to make quality friendships, but ultimately, one has to want to create such friendships first.
10
a person gives their devices all the time they want. i look at the screen to see who is calling. i bought the cheapest phone so not to be compatible with my new cars automatic blue tooth. the only reason i dont have as many confidantes as i did a long time ago is that some have left this life. you know time doing what it does. i avoid facebook but love phone conversations with friends. its called life and it's wonderful.
36
But on the other hand, a phone conversation isn't a visit. It's not seeing that face that's just a little bemused, sitting down to a table with coffee and leftover muffins from their mornings' breakfast and seeing how that quilting project is coming along. And, being of an age myself who was middle aged before smartphones with texting came along, I disliked how often Other People's Talk was interjected into our daily, minute to minute lives. So now I can read a history, or talk to my train seatmate, without hearing giddy loud chatter about the previous night's part doings of the adolescents behind me.
I can get a simple urgent communication to my son, and an answer in the hour or so, though he is at work. In his adolescent days, he could text me to tell me where he was, without getting away from his friends so they won't see he's phoning Mommy. If I can't get over to see my quilting friend, she can send me a picture of her latest project. So now, I find communication with real flesh and blood friends and family to be greatly facilitated by the little screen.
We're different from the beginning as I've always detested the disembodied nature of a phone call, much preferring either a visit (or to visit), or my own activities. I would hide my exasperation as that ring would be tended to as if it were a summons by a deity in a burning bush, when I was visiting or doing business with someone. To each his own.
I can get a simple urgent communication to my son, and an answer in the hour or so, though he is at work. In his adolescent days, he could text me to tell me where he was, without getting away from his friends so they won't see he's phoning Mommy. If I can't get over to see my quilting friend, she can send me a picture of her latest project. So now, I find communication with real flesh and blood friends and family to be greatly facilitated by the little screen.
We're different from the beginning as I've always detested the disembodied nature of a phone call, much preferring either a visit (or to visit), or my own activities. I would hide my exasperation as that ring would be tended to as if it were a summons by a deity in a burning bush, when I was visiting or doing business with someone. To each his own.
3
This was a compelling and thoughtful reflection on modern life. It had nothing whatever to do with American politics.
That commenters here twist and reduce this column to mere civil politics reminds me that the average IQ is only 100.
That commenters here twist and reduce this column to mere civil politics reminds me that the average IQ is only 100.
17
So the Trumpian middle of the night twitted logodiarrhea has nothing to do with what Brooks is talking about?
4
For some people, presidential politics seems to be a bigger threat than online life to their serenity and concentration.
2
My best friend died last year after a bout with the Alzheimer's. He used to do the Times' crosswords in ink, was a world class Scrabble player, and -- among many other things -- taught me how to order off-the-menu in Chinese restaurants. Having dabbled once in the car-parts business, he was capable of identifying a water pump lying in the street as belonging to a 1956 Buick Riviera.
A self-described “fresh-air inspector” who inherited a safety deposit box full of money from his father who was a bookie, he lived a gentle life full of minor jobs, dogs, books, bridge, jazz, a good wife and other friends to whom he was equally devoted to.
He laughed at everything I said, and on dark, rainy days the memory of him laughing still keeps me going. I don’t own a Facebook account and am not planning to acquire one.
A self-described “fresh-air inspector” who inherited a safety deposit box full of money from his father who was a bookie, he lived a gentle life full of minor jobs, dogs, books, bridge, jazz, a good wife and other friends to whom he was equally devoted to.
He laughed at everything I said, and on dark, rainy days the memory of him laughing still keeps me going. I don’t own a Facebook account and am not planning to acquire one.
412
Your loss of a friend, and your refusal to go on Facebook have nothing to do with each other.
4
What a lovely friend and friendship. If everyone had even one of these, the world would be a great place.
4
I'm glad that you were able to get that comment off your chest David, whatever it is about.
4
Thanks to the web we have lots of places to meet new friends. Then it's up to us how to grow the friendship or let it stay in the realm of possibility. It is so much easier to reveal ourselves through writing then face to face. Says so many poets who are recluses. I write feelings to my husband in an email so he can digest them on his own time and write back his; then we talk about the emails later after processing them. We've found writing to each other can be a great tool to a healthy marriage. In fact, that's how my husband and I met, reading each other's online poetry blogs.
11
Mr. Brooks, I can't recall a more useless piece of nonsense than "When we’re addicted to online life, every moment is fun and diverting, but the whole thing is profoundly unsatisfying." Yes, and also are the following:
(a). The Senate's refusal to honor President Obama's choice of a Supreme Court nominee to fill a vacancy. You have, since Antonin Scalia bid us adieu, written not a line about this. Your silence enables sedition in the ranks (Mitch McConnell, Charles Grassley, e.g.) Talk about "the avoidant!"
(b). Donald Trump's presidential campaign is an exercise in the built-in abuses of social media. These abbreviated posts of wisdom now pass for policy. Who reads a book any longer on history or science or a biography of a person of consequence in any field of endeavor?
(c). Has not enough been made of HRC's basement servers? We're not, Mr. Brooks, "socially engaged people." We're seemingly lonely and desperate, throwing Hail, Mary! tweets and "selfies" to others who have no knowledge of things outside of themselves. Few wish to engage; they wish merely to lob grenades out of the bushes in the safety of anonymity.
We, as an imitative species, seek the intimacy of disconnection. Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and, well whatever, seem to this non-participant in social media to be self-fulfilling attempts at reaching the final frontier of shredding community and village for...what? That there's no higher calling than the self? What of service to others? That's scary?
(a). The Senate's refusal to honor President Obama's choice of a Supreme Court nominee to fill a vacancy. You have, since Antonin Scalia bid us adieu, written not a line about this. Your silence enables sedition in the ranks (Mitch McConnell, Charles Grassley, e.g.) Talk about "the avoidant!"
(b). Donald Trump's presidential campaign is an exercise in the built-in abuses of social media. These abbreviated posts of wisdom now pass for policy. Who reads a book any longer on history or science or a biography of a person of consequence in any field of endeavor?
(c). Has not enough been made of HRC's basement servers? We're not, Mr. Brooks, "socially engaged people." We're seemingly lonely and desperate, throwing Hail, Mary! tweets and "selfies" to others who have no knowledge of things outside of themselves. Few wish to engage; they wish merely to lob grenades out of the bushes in the safety of anonymity.
We, as an imitative species, seek the intimacy of disconnection. Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and, well whatever, seem to this non-participant in social media to be self-fulfilling attempts at reaching the final frontier of shredding community and village for...what? That there's no higher calling than the self? What of service to others? That's scary?
37
One small nit regarding McConnell - it's treason.
The constitution clearly states what needs to happen. McConnell and every senator who supports him is in violation of their oath of office.
treason: the crime of betraying one's country.
sedition: conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state.
The constitution clearly states what needs to happen. McConnell and every senator who supports him is in violation of their oath of office.
treason: the crime of betraying one's country.
sedition: conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state.
9
Has David Brooks switched over to pop psychology because he can't bear to talk about his beloved GOP?
317
Sally, yes.
7
His Friday columns have long been oriented to this kind of topic.
Not pop psychology at all. Sociocraptology.
3
As usual, Mr. Brooks, you only cite men as your sources.
I really like Facebook. It has reestablished my connections with a lot of old high school and college friends frim the 1960s and 70s, people who were sharp years ago and are still crackerjacks. I get to see their photographs. I hear their voices.
Why do you assume that someone who is "socially engaged" is not also, in the dark hours, lonely?
The brain has many rooms.
And your "self" (nostalgic Republican man) needs to get out more.
I really like Facebook. It has reestablished my connections with a lot of old high school and college friends frim the 1960s and 70s, people who were sharp years ago and are still crackerjacks. I get to see their photographs. I hear their voices.
Why do you assume that someone who is "socially engaged" is not also, in the dark hours, lonely?
The brain has many rooms.
And your "self" (nostalgic Republican man) needs to get out more.
224
Mr. Brooks may be experiencing a difficult passage in his life, or reached an age where one might pause, look back in hindsight, decide what can be discarded and then proceed on to 'New Beginnings'.
Facebook is a great tool, as you mention, to reconnect with friends from the Past, although it was the web that took me to a childhood friend after 48 years, her family once with NATO, had disappeared. What happened next might one day make for a short story.
When there was a terrorist attack in Nigeria, or when Japan suffered a severe earthquake, friends and colleagues across the globe in the humanitarian community were able to reach out to each other. and it brings them all together during these events.
A little nostalgia is not such a bad thing, and if one can make 'Loneliness' a friend, not to be shunned or feared, Life often has a singular way of falling into place.
Facebook is a great tool, as you mention, to reconnect with friends from the Past, although it was the web that took me to a childhood friend after 48 years, her family once with NATO, had disappeared. What happened next might one day make for a short story.
When there was a terrorist attack in Nigeria, or when Japan suffered a severe earthquake, friends and colleagues across the globe in the humanitarian community were able to reach out to each other. and it brings them all together during these events.
A little nostalgia is not such a bad thing, and if one can make 'Loneliness' a friend, not to be shunned or feared, Life often has a singular way of falling into place.
2
Yes, and when the people of East Timor (formerly part of Indonesia) were trying to resist the ferocious Indonesian military over years, the Web at last was a great help to them. It gave them a voice. It changed their fate.
3
" I guess a modern version of heroism is regaining control of social impulses..."
There's an important lesson here David Brook's for your Republican crypto- fascist nominee. Fortunately for America, he is not "regaining control of (his) social impulses," and he is tweeting away his chance to "ruin America." As long as some one of his " loyal intimates" doesn't take his device away from this sleep deprived narcissist, the hyper connected online world will be saved from Trump.
There's an important lesson here David Brook's for your Republican crypto- fascist nominee. Fortunately for America, he is not "regaining control of (his) social impulses," and he is tweeting away his chance to "ruin America." As long as some one of his " loyal intimates" doesn't take his device away from this sleep deprived narcissist, the hyper connected online world will be saved from Trump.
59
Thank you pointing out Brooks' big omission in his 'Intimacy for the Avoidant' idle muse. I suspect Brooks wrote this long ago before Trump's tweets took center stage in this election cycle. Otherwise, how to explain the absence?
4
The modern version of heroism is to engage with any media and not be frightened, since the media only makes money if we're scared to death and checking it all the time. Intelligence, meanwhile, is being able to salvage some actual truth from the various slew of lies and spin that passes for news these days.
2
What happened to revising? Nah, I smell smoke and mirrors. DB is just saying, "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
2