God, I love this article. As one who rarely carries a smart phone (whatever it is, it can wait)
, my sentiments exactly.
7
This is an obnoxious article suggesting that rich people aren’t like the rest of ‘us’ because they are limiting screen exposure and the poor can’t . (And I’m neither rich nor poor)
It is one more intentionally divisive NYT article inserting inequality into every facet of human life. The reality is that excessive screen time is harmful, no matter how much money you make.
I agree that the rich shouldn’t be slavishly followed as trendsetters but if they lead the way and our society out of the damage ubiquitous tech has caused to the bonds of families, friendships, and society - let alone politics - then I am all for it.
6
A prediction I made in the 1990s - glad to know it's finally happening.
2
After cervical spinal surgery I became dependent on ebooks on my phone as it was difficult to hold a book for even a short period. I am not on FB and do see friends.
6
It isn’t that I don’t know the difference between cyber and human interaction. I know the pain of isolation and loneliness that many people face and that as a society we do not provide very many accessible relief. Bill’s ‘not Sox’ choice is not a choice I would ask him to make. But the idea that rich people have a better choice is disingenuous. Coerced human engagement is an awful choice. Tricking yourself and living a lie is worse, because now you have lost touch with yourself and your vulnerabilities which means any engagement you have is duplicitous, false, delusional.
Life can be tough. When you can accept that is when you learn to deal with it.
3
I am 68, divorced and semi-retired. Is this fellow disabled? i am not certain why he cannot find meaningful activities to engage in, books to read, places to volunteer? My days are full everyday.
Please don't assign victimhood to a 68 year-old; perhaps a 98 year-old.
24
Seconding the motion of Nellie Bowles, re time on screens being seen as increasingly unhealthy in their primary source, Silicon Valley, in an interview, Adam Alter, author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked,” notes that “You think [tech titan] children would be the biggest users of Tech. But what you actually find, it's the reverse…a lot of these tech titans refuse to let their kids near technology so they will send them to schools that don't involve technology or don't introduce tech until later…And a lot of them, including Steve Jobs in 2010 in an interview say things like, ‘You should use this device, but we do not allow it in our home and we won't let our kids near it. He was talking about the iPad.’” (The quote was part of a footnote I included in my recently published paper, “Is Technology a Parasite Masquerading as a Symbiont? And if so…”)
11
Applying Newton's 3rd Law of Motion to Social Behavior We Have:
For Every Action There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction
Isn't science great?
4
This was clearly foreseen by Frederick Pohl in his great short story, "The Midas Plague", published in 1954. Well worth reading.
6
I'm persuaded that there is this kind of class distinction when it comes to using screens for cost-cutting in schools and other services. But I'm not at all sure an empirical study would find that affluent Americans are really choosing to have richer face-to-face encounters in their lives, as compared to other groups.
I live in a major city that is a mix of low income and high income neighborhoods. I'd wager that today there are more lower- and middle-income people today in the parks, churches, and visiting with each other on porches, compared to what the high income people are doing.
Meanwhile, at my university, where most students come from affluent families, I have observed an increase in isolation and depression among students as smart phones have become ubiquitous.
15
As Executive Director of a social service agency that supports frail, low-income elders, this article spoke to the shifting tides that are begin experienced throughout the social service and health care industry. Too often, technology like that described in the article is the go-to response to cutting cost. I cringe when good people, people who truly want to help seniors, begin to talk about these types of electronic interventions as if they are equal to human intervention. I hope we can stop ourselves from drinking our own kool-aid.
14
One of two powerful central themes explored to great effect in Philip K. Dick's novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," was our intimate connection with other life forms. (Only the second related theme," what makes us human?" made it into the movie Blade Runner.) In the book, electronic animals were poor substitutes. I suspect the same is true of Sox.
3
Big Brother (dressed up as corporations) are now in kontrol of the masses & we have just taken our first steps into an Orwellian nightmare. Call it the tech version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Zombies' eyes glued to their phones while walking.
3
There isn’t much difference between Sox and a paid employee. Neither are true experiences of human engagement. But Bill knows that and he is satisfied with Sox because he understands the parameters of his expectations. The person who can afford to buy people services does not know the limits of paid for services. They seem to delude themselves into thinking if they didn’t pay for those services they would get those same services for free. And that these services are provided to them for reasons other then their money.
5
@Morgan. I am sorry for you that you feel that there is no difference between a human and cyber interaction. From working in healthcare, I can tell you that patients have thanked me many times for just listening to them or having a laugh with them. And yes, I was paid for my time in the facility.
7
Human companionship is a deep, deep need for most of us. It can be had by paying for help of various kinds, and contact is still contact even if someone is being paid a wage.
6
The richer you are, the less human contact you have because time is money. The rich never have any true friends, they only have acquaintances who are trying to get something. The biggest fear the rich have is that if they get close to someone, it may oblige them to devote their time, energy or money to activities that give no return. If you go to poorer neighborhoods, children are often playing on the street. If you go to a rich neighborhood, all the activities are scheduled. The streets are devoid of human life, nobody has any time to sit on the porch or enjoy the well manicured lawns. Even the pets do their thing in the enclosed back yards instead of going on walks. The poor do not hesitate to lend a hand because they know one day they will require help too. The rich may be beginning to realize what they gave up to acquire their wealth and may be trying to get that camaraderie back through artificial means.
16
@Rahul
The rich have time and money to socialize. That it is scheduled is beside the point. I have a morning block on my work calendar of when I can't call my (very very rich) boss. He's walking his dog at that time.
2
@Reader In Wash, DC
Socialization means nothing, you can always find a bunch of people who will eat and drink at your expense and then bash you behind your back.
There is a saying, if you want a friend in DC, get a dog, I think that is what your boss did.
3
Just as troubling as lack of human contact is the notion of human contact as a commodity. Where is the humanity? What about love?
7
A big part of the rich enjoying being rich is the psychic reward of having things that others don't have. When others eventually obtain items previously enjoyed only by the rich, the rich inevitably will feel the need to move on to something else. Thus, if and when perfected robot maids, personal assistants etc. become available but can only be afforded by the rich the rich will buy them. Thereafter, when these robots become affordable to everyone the rich will go back to paying human beings to perform this kind of work for them.
20
A big part of the rich enjoying being rich is the psychic reward of having things that others don't have. When others eventually obtain times previously enjoyed only by the rich, the rich inevitably will feel the need to move on to something else. Thus, if and when perfected robot maids, personal assistants etc. become available but can only be afforded by the rich the rich will buy them. Thereafter, when these robots become affordable to everyone the rich will go back to paying human beings to perform this kind of work for them.
4
Thanks to Ms Bowles for this. May she succeed in showing us how digital tech innovations increasingly offer solutions to problems they have helped create. May we learn to say enough to innovation, and recognize those human qualities that don't need innovation and can't be replaced.
3
Is reading the New York Times on my lap top "screen time" and how is it different from reading the New York Times on newsprint? (Except for the price.)
6
I read and absorb things differently on the screen than on paper.
3
"A doctor on a video feed told a patient, Ernest Quintana, 78, that he was dying." Is this what we've come to? That we cannot expect when we are dying that a human being will come into our room to tell us that face to face?
19
@Leah Shopkow
Telemedicine might have allowed that doctor to help more patients. If the patient can't get to the doctor do want the doctor's time spent commuting or helping another patient? And if Ernest's assets are so low to be eligible for the virtual cat his medical care probably is provided by the taxpayer. All the more reason to guard the doctor's time.
1
Don't know about the rest of you, but reading this article made me incredibly sad. I'm going to turn off this computer (to hell with the rest of the day's news), go pet my (real) dog, and treat the interactions I have with my (real) friends this week with renewed gratitude.
30
“There’s no real difference in building a relationship”. Yes Mr Wang, there certainly is, all the difference in the world. We need ethicist oversight of the techverse before it’s too late.
16
From the time my sons were younger, I had rules in the house, all electronic devices were banned from the dining table, never eat in front of the TV, don't answer phone calls during family meals, nothing that beeps while we have family time. It was hard and had to be enforced. Both my husband and I work, so we had work phones that had to be managed so that our family time wasn't encroached by work life.
The no phone, no beeping things on the table became just the way things are done at home. Last night, my son who is home from college cooked dinner for all, we sat around the dining room table talking for hours, no iPhone, no screens, very engaging.
That is not to say screens aren't part of our life, they're are, but not all the time.
22
That’s a lovely sentiment but impossible to enforce when one is on call and can be summoned for emergencies at all times... not sure what the solution is.
But you are among the privileged. The low income counterpart lives a different, and worse, lifestyle.
2
Although, it may have some upsides and benefits, it is tragically sad that there are people who have evolved to the level of needing artificial companionship. Human contact and emotion is essential for humans nurturing, growth and existence. Personally, I make it a point to periodically "disconnect," to enjoy nature or visit with and at times listen to others. I have found that in listening to and trying to understand others, manifesting sympathy and empathy and letting others speak and get things "off their chest," that I also benefit from this human interaction and connection. Talking to a "screen" may be better than having nothing, no interaction with another human. However, in the long run, it will not be the same as actual human interaction in any and all areas of life, in the schools, workplace, playground, medical services, or even having a real live pet, to whom a person can talk, where the pet can "talk back" by it's unconditional love.
5
My phone rarely works, I have never used social media and I am really good at NOT answering my email.
Looks like I'm rich, after all!
And if the uber-wealthy want to really be rich like me, they will embrace simplicity further by giving away much more of their material wealth than just the screens they would use in public.
At this point, they are simply star-belly sneetches who've ditched the stars.
14
Even the rich can't outsmart the most determined among us. Just stop. You may pay a price in the short term, but if you want to change all this, get up and do something about it. There was life before all of this. Yes, even for working poor people. Organize. For the things that really matter. Community. Decency. Public goods, parks, museums, etc. I often suggested that the "feminist movement" would soon be co-opted by corporate interests and "privileged" educated women. It was. How did the "secretary", waitress or receptionist benefit from this? They eliminated your job, that's how. Growing up in inner city NYC in the 1950's and 60's, there was illegal abortion and mothers that "stayed home" due to limited opportunity. While that was wrong, I often ponder how much further we'd be today if maintaining and solidifying community was the primary goal. I dare say that not just women, but everyone ( think "unions") would be in a much better position to fight for what is right. Think about all of that before you reach for the next shiny object or "cause" celeb. Leave that for those who are constantly checking their so called "smart" phones. Maybe not as smart as they thought?
3
Thoughtful, scary article. I use my iPad and iMac judiciously, mostly to read newspapers and yes, look at cute cat and dog videos or see YouTube musical performances from almost any composer I can think of. But I don’t go out in public clutching my phone the way I see almost everyone under 40 do, have no Facebook account and think Twitter is a gathering place for twits. I’m lonely more than I care to admit, but do interact with others regularly through volunteering, and feel grateful to have time and money in retirement. I also write a lot. Computers are like Satan’s handiwork—use but beware. We are here to interact with carbon, not with silicon.
24
In the USA, we found a way to provide human contact every day without the demands of church, family, or government decades ago. AA and the tens of groups modeled after AA, like GA, NA, and OA are support groups. People know they can reverse decades of progress in an instant. That's how and why they talk with each other.
Someone who can listen for a minute or two, sympathize and help, can make the day go well. One day at a time. That's what support is all about.
2
I am a philosophy professor at one of the two-year colleges of the City University of New York. Fifteen years ago, I would walk into a classroom buzzing with student voices as they talked about the course material and current events. Now, the classroom is nearly silent, with each student's head buried in a device of some kind.
I turn on the IT podium (replete with VCR, DVD player, projector, and internet access. But I don't use it. Someone tracks whether the equipment is being "utilized," and I got chewed out a few years ago because the administration could tell I wasn't even turning it on. So I turn it on.
Telling my students to put away their devices is like telling heroin addicts to pack up their works.
We discuss Plato's Allegory of the Cave, and how the prisoners seem to be content with the shadow puppet shows produced for them by the guards. We laugh at the story. "Who could possibly desire a life in a cave, eyes glued to a screen, when there is such a vibrant, REAL world to be embraced and experienced?"
When the discussion ends, they pull out their devices as they file out of the room, and it is all I can do to keep from crying...
49
"We discuss Plato's Allegory of the Cave, ..."
How do your students read that? On paper or on screen? And how are writing assignments submitted?
@FMP
A very fair question. I act it out. No pictures, no screens. At the end of the discussion, I ask my students what would happen if an ex-prisoner went back into the cave to try to explain to the other prisoners what is really going on, and we generally agree that they would probably kill the ex-prisoner.
Thanks for asking!
8
Why does quitting social networks require one to be upper class? Understand the idea that it's a class signified and I myself have been trying to do so. But it doesn't cost anything to avoid fb, ig, Twitter etc.
4
The bigger picture is that for the last 20 years the profit mongers/monsters have tried to monetize every aspect of your social life. Every engagement with another human must cost money, it must involve payments, so no friends over, go out - every cup of coffee, every meal, exercise sessions at gyms, not in the park, etc. screens and their advertising are just one more in a long line. So long as we fail to recognize that we are mere data points for a marketing algorithm then we are allowing the destruction of our social world.
14
If I had read this article 40 years ago it would have been dystopic science fiction and very depressing. Now the nightmare has come to life.
20
Decent human customer service is a serious loss in the process described in this piece. Would you believe it?- my most recent telephone interactions with the Philippines and Guatemala have been less than satisfying. I don’t even understand the telemarketing scammers who call me several times a day. I would definitely prefer to have a fraud perpetrated upon me in decent English.
13
Parks are free. Church is free. Volunteering is free. Tutoring is free. Going outside for a walk is free.
We need to figure out why some able-bodied seniors or single people get out of their house and lead fulfilling lives, and why others don’t.
It’s not just about money. There are plenty of low-income people who are vibrantly involved in their community, and others who choose to stay home and be lonely. What’s the difference between them?
23
I am an only child who had to care for my widowed mom. There were always three issues: loneliness, loss of activity, and fear. Her iPad was a huge help for many years - it connected her with a world she couldn't reach by foot or by car and it gave her things to do. Was it better than a visit? No. Did it satisfy our need to have, from birth to death, a feeling of belonging and significance? No. Did it work when concentration faltered and depression increased? No. But for a long time it was better than other alternatives.
However, she would have rejected an avatar, and I agree with the readers who call for public funding for caregiving. The question is how to do it well. If you can't afford private pay it's pot luck. You may be assigned a wonderful, caring person or you may be assigned others who, for various reasons, are not a personality match or manipulate or steal or can't keep their hours. Monitoring that process and fixing problems was an enormous challenge and caused my mom great stress. My eyes were opened after visiting one agency approved by a well-rated Medicaid managed care group. The staff were so overwhelmed by urgent work that there wasn't time to pay attention to quality of care. I took an unpaid leave of absence to help because I couldn't afford the right human contact. That is not a viable public policy, and maybe for some not better than an avatar. The end of life can be difficult; those experiencing it should have as much choice and voice as possible.
151
@Christy
How on earth did mankind EVER survive for 10,000 years? You say it’s improved her quality of life. I wonder, now that you expect her to connected.
1
I teach courses in science fiction and I've read many articles like this but this one really shook me-- especially the last paragraph where the author describes how a "tablet on a motorized stand" is "wheeled in" in order to have an on screen doctor tell a patient that he is dying. This is a seriously dystopian vision. Several commentators have referred to Orwell and Huxley dystopian futures but I was really pleased that someone mentioned E.M Forster's frighteningly prescient 1909 story "The Machines Stop," set in a future world where people live in single rooms and only connect through screens. One unusual young man decides that he wants to see his birth mother "face to face" and "not through this wearisome Machine" and his mother is "vaguely shocked." "You mustn't speak ill of the Machine," she says. The ending of the story is both tragic and vaguely hopeful as the "Machine" breaks down and the few humans left look up through shattered buildings to glimpse "scraps of the untainted sky." Let us hope that we can still remember to look up beyond our machines!
16
My father, in his 70s, is addicted to his beloved iPad. Email, Facebook, YouTube. On a recent visit my 9yo son asked him to play cards. He turned his grandson down, “I’m doing my email! I have 38 unread messages!” My son and I exchanged glances. I never thought I’d see the day when the grandson is sad that the grandparent won’t look up from his screen to interact... but there it was. Our family also has an iPhone addict (Email, Twitter and ESPN) - that would be my husband.
I use these examples as a talking point to personalize the impact of screen addiction.
I treat screens like toxic substance - handled with great care, and for as briefly as possible. I fill our home with books, legos and talk. My sons play together - games like ‘Go Nuts for Donuts’ - and talk about the series they are reading (the current buzz is Tui Sutherland’s ‘Wings of Fire’). Other people make other choices with their kids/screen time. This works for my little brood.
178
@CT, that’s a lot of judgement on your father. Maybe he wants to correspond with his friends online more than he wants to play cards with your son. That may not be what you want to see, but your father has the right to choose how he spends his time. Your children are the center of your world, but it’s possible they aren’t your father’s axis minding. I am saying this as an Aunt (with a capital A) who has watched her siblings foist their kids on grandparents, aunts and uncles, and judge harshly anyone among them who did not make those kids the constant centers of their universes. Some people dig kids more than others, CT, and not all grandparents are of the Hallmark Card commercial variety. That doesn’t mean they are bad people.
34
If you examine CT’s first-hand observation, it was a personal lament while she did not use judgmental language. And, I completely bought her stance. There is an immense obliviousness among a great many persons as to how they neglect those in their presence for the sake of chasing digital stimuli. Critique and even intervention can be a favor to the screen obsessed.
48
@Passion for Peaches
Actually, it does mean they are bad people, in the lives of their grandchildren.
Ignoring your grandchild for email is inexcusable. Even the child knows it.
Is there no other time in the day for Grandpa to do his email? Or, better yet, delete them all and play with your grandson. Children know love when they see it.
26
I'm a little perplexed by the binary of this article. I know a lot of people who don't qualify as rich (including myself) who also try to raise their kids and live with less technology. I realize that I am typing this on a laptop, but I don't have any social media accounts and don't spend any time messing around on my phone, so aside from necessities of work and checking my email, reading the news is the only thing I do on any device. My kid has zero interest in technology - he's only 9 so net yet a teen, but he doesn't want to play video games, watch tv, have a phone, look at a phone, or any of it. We raised him without screens and he finds them boring. They use computers some at school.
I can see some reasons for the argument. One of those reasons is things like healthcare, customer service: people with less available resources (either because of income, geography, or both) will increasingly rely on technology for these instead of seeing a real person. Or the person profiled in the article, who can't pay for human companionship. In that sense, human contact becomes more of a luxury. But in theory, for most people, it shouldn't be a luxury at all. All it has ever taken is actually talking to people, getting out in the world, joining a group, signing up for something, volunteering, calling family or visiting friends. I don't see why these are less available to lower and middle income people, of whom I know many (and who manage to have friends).
159
@reader What about physically handicapped people with mobility problems who can't leave home? What about the cost of gasoline preventing people from going to meetings? Or not having the money to pay for joining groups, etc?
30
@me. I agree that there are some situations where people, lacking other resources, will rely on technology for socialization or services. But I also think those situations are limited. It may be more of an issue for lower income elderly people or people with certain kinds of disabilities (including certain kinds of mental illness). Thus, the wealthy, holier-than-thou, anti-technology stance can be shown to be a privileged posturing, to a degree. But I don't think that access to human contact is, generally speaking, a wealthy vs. non-wealthy divide, and I don't think the author provided any evidence that it is, aside from wealthy posturing. Nor do I think that, generally speaking, wealthy people are living lives with less technology.
25
@me Or not having the money and/or time to travel to see family, since so many people now live far away from same.
17
What we're also seeing is the invasion of relentless audio and visual stimulation. Go to the gas station to fill up your tank. It used to be that someone filled it for you. Now you do it yourself and get a receipt when you're done if you want one. The only sounds at the gas station were those of the gas pumps, the cars, and whatever ambient noise was around. Not any more. Now it's like being in a store: music, ads, "news", offers, all designed to have us surrender our time, attention, and money to the consumer economy.
Walk down any sidewalk and see how many people notice you are there. 15 years ago you'd be noticed and someone would have said hello. Today, you could be bleeding out and no one would notice. People don't know how to give directions, how to answer questions in person, or how to behave appropriately in public. Online they don't have to compete for anyone's attention or be polite.
So what most of us are getting is the worst of what technology does. Interviews for jobs start with scanning software. Contacting a company or your doctor can start with an automated system. Deviating from the expected script means you get put on hold. Efficiency is depriving us of human contact, work, and experience. It's a world I don't want to live in.
274
@hen3ry
I want to meet the genius who decided that putting TVs on gasoline pumps was a good idea. At the stations in my area, the ads run continuously -- not just during that two minute interval while the gas is flowing into the tank -- and you cannot turn the volume down. Distracting people who are pumping a highly flammable liquid is absolutely brilliant.
39
@hen3ry Not at all true of my neighborhood and city in general. I hope it's not as bleak as you paint.
1
@John Mack Providence is different, and now expensive.
1
Two of the guys I went to high school with died last week. As our friends dwindle down to a precious few, it behooves all of us to do everything we can to maintain and expand our human contacts in every way we can.
Bah humbug to robots and technology.
Give me my neighborhood diner, public library, senior center, local museums, shopping malls and YMCA every time -- where there are always plenty of people to swap memories with, bemoan the state of the country with and joke around with.
234
Give me my synagogue, neighborhood diner ....
6
@A. Stanton
Bah humbug to robots and technology is right - though I know there have been some tech. inventions that are for the betterment of humanity, especially in the medical field.
In my dotage, I enjoy walking or triking to most everything in my town.
But I do admit to enjoying the NYT comment section!
9
My stomach tied itself in knots as I read this. I'm a public school teacher in Los Angeles, my students are all from poverty, and my district is on a crusade to go paperless. Lessons I used to present on paper have now been loaded into iPads, and my copy allowance per month, which used to be 3,000 sides, has been cut to 2,000. I have railed against this to my principal, and anyone else in power I can accost. The upshot is that, at least in the Los Angeles Unified School District, screens are the future and I am something akin to a Luddite. I'm so angry I could spit.
317
"Lessons I used to present on paper have now been loaded into iPads, ..."
Could you be more specific about those "lessons"?
If they are simple multiple choice questions, it seems like an iPad would be better.
If the lessons involve handwriting, maybe not.
BTW, what happened to all those paper lessons after they were completed?
6
Has anyone truly did a cross comparison of not just the economic costs, but the environmental and social costs of going paperless?
Now that China and India are no longer taking the by product waste from the US, how will Liberal Progressives and Conservatives respond to the demands of the future where the norms of generations may drastically change to the opposite the are akin to for most of their life.
There is always an upside and a downside to new technologies which lead society and ourselves to different crossroads that sometimes we blindly obey yet seldom seek to find an equilibrium suitable for our lives.
3
The very best learning I got in school was whenever we left the classroom entirely whether it was a field trip or simply a lesson taught with no books or paper or pencils, out in the sun sitting on the grass. Teachers, great teachers, don’t need anything but themselves and a willing student.
7
Actually, it isn't the wealthy that want to go screen free, i-Phone free, it is many of the older people, who just don't want their busy life of reality to be interrupted by any of it, buzzing, ringing, notifications, as many people have yards to take care of, gardens to plant, and flower beds to take care of, lots of time spent with the grandchildren, whose parents limit their screen time, and so they spend lots of time outdoors. For those who spend time jogging, walking, in parks, camping, boating, raking their yards, washing their cars, visiting with the neighbors, etc. there is another normal world out there that many people, not necessarily the rich nver left. It is a great place to be.
280
@MaryKayKlassen This may well be generational, as you suggest.My wife and I (65 yo) have robust outdoor lives, time with grandchildren , sports ,overseas travel etc. Neither of us use any social media- frankly a complete waste of our valuable time- email sparingly and we use facetime to visit our children. I suspect we are in the bottom (or top) 5% of screen time users.
35
@MaryKayKlassen-The normal you describe is great and I hope more wake up to it, especially parents of infants and toddlers who I see on the streets of SF more attentive to their iPhones than their children.
18
@MaryKayKlassen. I had some trouble gathering my thoughts to respond to your comment.
From your remark I can gather that you are well off. I would quess your vacations abroad cost more than 2,000 dollar. That was the capoff amount to qualify for the help program.
Children at school don’t get to chose between a tablet or small classes and extra teachers, the get the cheapest solution.
Count your self lucky to be well off
15
Great article and comments.
I teach at a state university, and when I walk across campus, even on a nice day, students are not looking at trees or lawns or architecture or birds in the sky or other people. They ALL have their faces glued to I-phones. It's a horror show.
Admittedly, as my job requires, I have my face in a laptop for hours each day. Yet not only do I not own an I-phone, but I allow no screens whatsoever - laptops or I-phones - in my classes. This is to remind students that humans are still capable of interacting face to face. Some of them actually appreciate this, although near the end of class I can see the withdrawal symptoms on many faces. As soon as I say "Good work everyone, see you next time," the I-phones come out in unison. This is an example of technology evolving much more quickly than we can adapt to it in a healthy way. God help us.
407
@John
I attended college when I was young and healthy.
Laptops and cell phones did not exist.
I have early onset erosive osteoarthritis in my fingers, and have had several surgeries. Consequently , it is very painful for me to write, and my writing looks like a scrawl.I am grateful that I can keyboard.
I hope that you make exceptions regarding your laptop rule for students who can not write, due to medical problems , in order that they can take notes. While I graduate college in 1984, I'd want to be able to take notes if I were to audit classes for the sheer joy of learning.
16
@John I was employed at a regional university. When I retired, 2012, smart phones, and doing business on stress were just beginning to become ubiquitous. Recently I returned to the university. Now most students have their faces in their screens when they are walking to and from class. Almost all administrative work is done on screens with little human nteraction. That was disturbing to me. I believe that the reliance on screens degraded my going back to work experience. Now my contract is over. I am looking forward to going outside and working on projects on my house and in my yard.
The two dimensional world is less satisfy than the three dimensional world.
27
@John
I enjoyed reading your views, including the rules you set for your classroom.
Out here by the beach, I see many young - far from taking in the beautiful views unless to take photos of it - with their noses in their phones.
What a dystopian, un -thought-through world Big Tech. is foisting upon us. Where are the ethics to this industry, let alone the regulatory oversight?
10
So, apparently the sky IS falling. I just know that this article was written in long hand. Good job!
1
How dreadful and pathetic our society has become through such frivolous technology. Twitter, Facebook, now this absurd app.
6
Computer screens used to be for the elite but now avoiding them is a status symbol and will become even more of a status symbol and probably, eventually, best kept secret the more humanity is sucked up into computers/internet and human contact becomes a luxury good and eventually something only the elite will really have in life? Makes sense to me. Power in every age has at its very best only presumed to know what the public wants, its dreams, has been patronizing, condescending, and this applies whether you speak politically or economically in the sense of capitalism or socialism, and the ideal of power has been to hold itself as the pure awake or enlightened state of humanity and that everybody else either awakens in a controlled, regulated manner, in accordance with power, or must be tossed into a myth, have dreams controlled, or a nightmare set in, and certainly as best as possible have desires managed. Essentially the establishment of computers/internet is just a new phase of dream control of society. In religious ages an elite would contain the people in a myth, control their lives. Writing, books, new forms of communication broke all that up, but now computers/internet and decline of all other forms of communication promise a more powerful form of dream control, one ironically sold to us as more freedom promoting than even books were, but in actuality one heck of a grip on the human mind. "Who dares look directly at power! WE will tell you what to see dreamer of life!"
1
So....not only is the recipient staring at a screen all day, someone else in another hemisphere is being paid to look at that guy all day? Ugh. What a horrible job. Clearly there are way too many people on the planet, when there are so many of them who are not performing any actual work.
1
Philip K. Dick was prescient...it's time to read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" again.
1
You could probably make a sarcastic comment about this, but the rich rarely make the wrong bet. So screens are probably bad for you.
3
In Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Shhep, the protgaonist, Deckard, does a miserable investigator’s job that he hates. Why? So he can afford a real pet, unlike the elctric one that is stuck on his roof. It looks like we are finally catching yp to 2021.
4
In the 90s and 2000s I raised my children without tv except for Friday nights. I took a lot of disapproval for that but it was key to their developing attention span and critical thinking. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to do that with smartphones and tablets.
I realized the rich/poor smartphone dichotomy when I saw the Elton John and James Corden in a car video. Elton said he never used a cell phone and has staff to attend to that. Corden was shocked. Well I guess James hasn’t arrived in the way that Elton has.
Yes, only the richest can now raise children with limited screens. TVs have babysat poor, working and just lazy parents for decades. Now tablets do. It’s not “educational” no matter what they tell themselves.
And schools have been sold a bill of goods letting tablets and PCs into schools before high school. Technology has sucked up school budgets with their never ending needs for replacement.
We are like alcoholics now. We know the problem but must Want to change. It is looking more and more sensible to go back to a flip phone. Difficult in the beginning but ultimately better for us.
4
Good luck-every time you view that screen you get a hit of dopamine.
Interesting article, but full of big assertions based on very thin facts.
"So as wealthy kids are growing up with less screen time, poor kids are growing up with more. How comfortable someone is with human engagement could become a new class marker."
Really? Based on what data? One trendy school? And a conversation with the CEO of the "Luxury Institute?"
The NYT is slipping.
2
This smells like one of their “articles for fee”. Hey @NYT why not flip the script and get Sam Harris to contribute an article on the need for ethicists to profoundly guide tech?
So, we're back to pitting the rich against the poor again, right? The rich have so much more opportunity for actual human interaction and the poor don't.
This is outright rubbish on a new level.
Our communities offer us parks, with actual playgrounds and ball fields where children of ALL ages interact. We have libraries and museums that offer free programs to enrich lives, for all ages. There are ways to explore inner cities and suburbs and rural areas that don't involve big expenses...from metro transportation to hiking. Volunteers of all ages are needed all over our country and all volunteering requires human interaction.
Our schools offer a plethora of opportunity for "human interaction" from all kinds of sports to all kinds of clubs. If you don't believe me, just read the excellent column by Nicholas Kristof about Tanitoluwa Adewumi and his family, the poorest of the poor, Nigerian refugees, who is now a chess champion because of, among other things, human interaction.
I'm sorry Bill Langlois is having problems with the idle time posed by retirement and his wife's travels. Perhaps he is depressed. Perhaps he needs to turn off his screen and take a walk. To a park or to a library. Or, perhaps he needs to get off his backside and volunteer, maybe in a school like Tanitoluwa's, and help coach young children.
Rich against poor....absolute rubbish.
1
Computer screens used to be for the elite, now avoiding them is a status symbol in preference of human contact which is becoming a luxury good?
It appears to me the progression is more like computer screens were first primarily in the hands of power, and power/elite has always worked both to make things easier for itself and to never be shown up by that which is outside itself, which means power first took to computers then convinced as much as possible public to become hooked so that a total surveillance, communications, manufacture of desire system could exist, and now power by making it public that it's operating to great deal offscreen (like in days of old) is not relinquishing control at all of the system but making itself even more elusive at the same time it makes everyone else more clearly located on the system, and if any person tries to imitate power and leave the computer screen that person by precisely having no power and little means is left even worse off than being on computer, is left an entirely isolated person with no contact with anyone or anything...
Essentially power has sucked by computer everyone and everything up into itself and is just making it easier by the day to prevent itself from becoming affected in any way by this sucking up process to point it might one day not have to watch the screens much at all, just make minor adjustments here and there as it controls, surveils, crushes, decides the dreams of a vast sleeping public of working sheep.
It needs to be understood that the article is describing another transitional technology in an ever evolving landscape of change. Sox the screen cat being run by a call centre will seem as quaint as the original Mac in a few years.
The trend sucking rich are abandoning tech as a fad, and because it is so primitive. But I guarantee that when fully lifelike AI robotic people hit the market they will be the first to embrace them.
For my part however, I prefer the screen to some imagined past where every experience had to be mediated by someone. If the past was so wonderful then why did society give it up so easily?
As I write this it is about 4 in the morning. In that vaunted past the library would be closed, the cinema shuttered, the school closed, the NY Times would be unavailable, TV would not be broadcasting and everyone would be asleep.
But here I sit, with a virtual library of Alexandria in my hands; the NY Times is delivered to my bed; film of all types available at the touch of a screen; easy access to broadcast media from anywhere in the world instantly; I can chat or videoconference with people who are awake; I can educate myself, learn a language, or a musical instrument, or read research papers without dealing with a gatekeeper of knowledge, and on and on.
I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s and do not have some nostalgic fantasy of how wonderful it was to constantly be dependent on some person for everything. The emptiness of life then was very stark as well.
3
Interesting how many tactile and real things you didn’t do at 4am—like go outside and look at the stars, pet your dog, make a cup of tea, open a book or play your harmonica! Instead you decided to imbed yourself in digital comments...while suggesting how marvelous it is to have a digital-verse to look at thus stimulating your eyes with backlighting which the medical community agrees interrupts our natural circadian rhythm. Guessing you be up at the same time tomorrow.
3
Volunteer! You always have something to give and you’ll stop feeling sorry for yourself.
2
Huh, ultimately this brilliant innovation just screws the poor and vulnerable. Who didn't see this coming during Jobs' creepy messianic "rollouts" 15 yrs ago? Or when the Apple crew showed up at clueless school board meetings with their "one-to-one" trojan horse scheme?
Where is Mark Twain when we need him?
3
I'm on a screen now, as are all who've read this piece and all who are commenting on it.
My guess is that, like me, you didn't get to this article right away, so, like me, you've been doing screen time for maybe hours.
Why are you still reading, then? And, worse, why am I still writing?
17
@Victor
Good and interesting points. Here are my thoughts:
I'm sixty-six, and my brain is fully formed. I use a flip-phone. Aside from this desk-top computer and the laptop I must use to take attendance as a teacher, I am off-screen. As for my use of this forum, I'm a fully informed adult free agent and am comfortable doing it.
The avatar aspect of screens is obviously useful to certain people. My father-in-law spent eight years in a nursing home as a stroke survivor. He was visited 3 times daily by his wife, but other stroke survivors had no visitors at all and might well have benefited from the company of an avatar.
My concern is for the vast majority of public school children today whose brains are literally being changed by the screen time they must put in simply to learn. I think this is criminal. Just as the NRA virtually owns the Republican Party, our public school systems are largely influenced by technology companies.
I have a choice, and am informed enough to make it responsibly. Our schoolchildren don't and aren't.
6
@Victor I'm now reading and writing because I just took a 45 min bike ride to the gym, lifted weights for 30 min, and then rode back for45 min. Unfortunately, I am now 72 and don't have quite the stamina I used to. So I need to relax and have a glass of wine. Reading comments gives me something to do while relaxing. I'll probably go out again for a ride along the beach in a few hours.
10
@Victor I'm spending a ton of time on line right now for the simple reason that I had foot surgery and reading articles and comments distracts me from the now light pain I am having. It's almost healed and when I can get a shoe back on I will be heading back to the gym.
Yet, you have a solid point. Even at the gym, no-one except partners interact. They put on their headphones and don't make eye contact with anyone. I have a better time at my Tai Chi class where people talk to each other and then actually concentrate on the class.
4
Quitting Facebook over 5 years ago was one of the best decisions I ever made. It was a waste of my time & energy. I was in high school in the mid 80's and cannot imagine having to navigate those years via the uber facade that is social media. I wouldn't have survived it. I feel for this generation of adolescents who are suffering from anxiety and depression at alarmingly higher rates than previous generations--social media is a factor. Don't be a slave to technology, make technology work for you! It's very satisfying to leave my phone behind while I'm out grocery shopping or running errands. I refuse to jump the moment a notification sounds--a Pavlovian dog I am not--so I silence my phone when I get home from work. The world will keep spinning if you miss a call or wait to respond to a text after you finish eating dinner. Live your life, don't get sucked into the AI screen vortex!
63
I find this utterly chilling.
5
Of course, if it weren't for the screen, I would have had to wait for this article to appear in tomorrow's newspaper, and if I had wanted to reply to it, I would have had to type or write a letter by hand to the editor and then wait for days to see if it had been published. Even the rich can appreciate this kind of convenience.
3
@Mark Lebow, yes, I also felt a bit of guilt as I keyed in my comment of how awful the robotic cat was.
2
Honestly I’d rather have the paper version.
2
The author's taxonomy includes two groups: the rich or the oppressed.
Keep it up NYT. I had worried that the Republican Party committed suicide by nominating Trump and then actually getting him elected.
But with the NYT keeping up its drumbeat of hate mongering there is hope for the GOP.
5
The saddest part of this article is that it has taken a MACHINE to restore Mr Langlois’s faith and give him back his life. What does that say about the rest of us humans?
Here’s an idea. Why don’t we all stop slaving away working to buy and pay for our technology and then we can all have the time to interact with and love each other and live like rich people?
4
"Human contact is becoming a luxury good" -- replace the humans in your immediate environment by dogs and horses, much easier to deal with than people, in the words of a 1950s British black-and-white comedy.
1
The latest craze is people talking on their cell phone using the speaker in public and in restaurants. They also let their kids watch videos using the speaker in restaurants. This behavior is abhorrent and growing. I don't want to hear their annoying speaker. Screens are turning people into rude entitled oafs.
9
People fretting about screen time seem to forget the days of not looking up from a book or newspaper.
2
A terrifying stop on the road to dystopia.
4
I am typing this comment for Mr. Malmstrom, who is too important to look directly at the screen. He wishes you to know that he enjoyed having the article read to him and agrees with its premise.
JM/ap
2
We all know what clickbait is. Well "Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good" is clickbait for the NYT's set. And I fell for it!
This was your typical lifestyle/technology article, in the modern-day-malaise mode, that the NYT's and other social media love to put forth as if revelatory or insightful.
Yet, the whole piece, as others have commented on, was full of conjecture, cherry-picking and just sheer biased reporting. There was little to no analytics or research supporting the assertions made except a few quotes from some 'degreed' talking heads and some scientific mumbo-jumbo that may or may not be correct.
Like any technology, the internet and smart devices are tools that can enhance or diminish life, all depending on how we choose to use them. It is our individual choices that dictates whether we'll be the master or the slave.
And finally, being alone does not always equate to being lonely.
3
The problem is that people are getting hooked on the dopamine hits.
1
The comments below suggesting having a real cat for a companion beats an artifcial being on a screen are just dripping with unintended irony. There's a reason everyone in our culture immediately gets the metaphor of "a cat lady."
I hold with Norman Mailer who once called technology the devil.
1
This article is based on a lie. The sad old man who depends upon an artificial cat for emotional support may be poor, but his emotional poverty is not caused by financial poverty. He has a wife. He could go to a senior center or to a church or even to a cafe where he would be in human company. He does not appear to be physically disabled, so he could get a real cat or a dog that he could take for walks, an excellent way to meet people. Instead, he has chosen to spend his time with a fake cat on a screen. He may be depressed, he may be senile, he may be a misanthrope, but he is not the victim of inequality.
2
...with less than 2K in actual assets to qualify for the program I would say he is definitely impoverished economically. With a digi-cat helping him reconnect with “the lord” I would say he is lacking in imagination &/or suffering from severe depression, ie “emotionally impoverished”.
2
This article shows how completely neurotic and narcissistic our society has become. It’s really sickening. Let’s stop this insanity before we all self-destruct.
3
Imagine reading this piece 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago. You would have been even more horrified then than now. Humans are indeed a sick, dying species.
5
I live with as little screen time as I can, and have been doing so for the past 10years. Am I rich? Not quite...(un)fortunately. Just a lover of literature!
While this article’s premises on denouncing the increased mediation of social life via screens are founded, the whole idea that you have to be rich to avoid it, at best, lacks nuances, at worst is a lie. PhDs in literature are not among the financially wealthy!!!
Could we—as readers— get better articles?!
Read EM Forster’s 1909 prescient dystopian short story “The Machine Stops”—you’ll be shook.
6
At first I thought this article was a spoof.
The Virtual Life didn’t lose any time getting here.
3
The right to disconnect, I think I'll do that right....... . . . . . . . .
2
Seems more like it’s just the old status delimiter “Don’t call me, I’ll call you” as they used to like to say.
watch? stopped watching tv half century ago. pop culture (tech culture) is horrible. phones and screens are the worst. should we just have numbers tatooed on our wrists and jump off a cliff cuz everyone else is doing it? google & apple & verizon and at&t are ALL working with the DoD. ignore this. murder is ok as long as we don't really see it. except on tv where it's fake. sex is not ok.
I am a massage therapist, and I can tell you there are alot of lonely people out there. Professional distance is a constant struggle. I’d still say you can’t buy true intimacy or authenticity, but someone can certainly take your money and give you a reasonable faximily.
1
I don't know, human interaction is all so messy and primitive. It requires us to make compromises and cooperate.
The more I learn about people, the more I like my devices.
(sarcasm)
Ah, suspicions confirmed. I googled the author: Nellie Bowles is definitely a millennial!
This excellent article is the scariest and saddest indictment of where we are headed as humans, and the lies and debasement we allow - all in the name of profit making.
3
I have very happy memories of family car trips which my brothers and sister ( Mom was referee) and I spent playing “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral,” “I Spy,” “Paper, Rock and Scissors,” “Name the State Capitols,” picking out unusual licence plates and landmarks etc., having what we called “staring contests” and even singing “rounds” like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” which always ended in gales of laughter as we each began to flub our parts. Although at the time, we didn’t think of those games as “bonding” or “educational” they were both those things.
The idea of children sitting in the back seat of a car glued to screens and never talking, playing and singing silly songs with their parents and brothers and sisters makes me very sad.
3
One little chunk of humor was the bit about pagers, how back in the day they signaled importance and busyness. For doctors they were digital prison cells and we hated them. I guess the rest of society has caught up.
3
This even occurs in public spaces, such as restaurants: two people sit at the same table, each looking at their screen. The "ambient music" is so loud it precludes conversation. They can either yell at each other or grope each other.
3
Of all the articles on the privileges of being rich, this one is the most depressing thing I’ve ever read.
1
This article is such baloney. A majority of wealthy people spend insane amounts on screens while a majority of the rest still cannot afford the bandwidth to be addicted to them. The author is trying to find a pattern where there’s none.
One thing is true. Tech elites see the harm they’re causing and don’t want their advantaged kids to be harmed by their work. As long as they’re taking home the bacon and eating it too they find themselves in a coveted position to brag about how enlightened and screen-free their precious kids are.
1
I totally agree with the data gathering of the non elite
This is more than a bad idea—this borders on elder abuse.
I'm not critical of Mr. Langlois; my wrath is directed at the well-intentioned young people who think this is a good fate for him.
As we get older we should get three kinds of exercise.
1. Physical exercise.
2. Mental exercise.
3. Social exercise.
Bill, since I'm saying don't follow the advice of these people or their cat, here's some advice I would give:
1. Toss the robot cat in the garbage can.
2. Since this has taken you outside, refamiliarize yourself where places like the library, the store, the coffee shop, the park, the church, and the local school are.
3. Make a vow that at least once a day you will get outside and go and/or do something (I got this one from my mom). Visit the same places on a regular schedule, so you start running into the same people.
4. Sketch out a daily exercise program—the gym is great, since you meet people there, but walking's fine.
5. Get a bunch of books from the library; maybe join a book club.
6. Volunteer to tutor the kids down at the school. See if they need some help at the church.
7. Make a list of old friends and co-workers, and call one a day. Maybe suggest you get together at the coffee shop.
8. As others here have suggested, get a real cat.
9. And...well you get the idea.
Again, I'm sure Care.Com is well-intentioned, but here's a better idea - how about a coaching program that would help people like Bill reengage in these kinds of activities?
1
This is one of the saddest articles that I have read in a long, long time.
How have we allowed our society to become so enslaved to representations of life in lieu of life itself.
We've failed, folks...We've failed miserably.
4
The rich kept horses, too.
“Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real centre of the household,” says an aristocrat in GBS’s Heartbreak House. “There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes. It isn’t mere convention: everybody can see that the people who hunt are the right people and the people who don’t are the wrong ones.”
She’s being plenty bad and nasty when she says “nice” and “good.” Real democracy depends on substitutive technology, and our egalitarian morality depends on it, too.
1
Mr. Langlois has a wife. Even though she is out of the house for much of the day (I assume working?) he is not without human companionship. Something is missing from the story. Why does he not prefer talking to his wife, a real person, than an avatar of a cat? If he and his wife are estranged then it would have added to the story presented.
2
"Did IQs just drop sharply was I was away?"
Apparently yes, yes they did. Every time I see a toddler playing with a computer screen, I get an overpowering urge to tear it out of their hands and hit their parents over the head with it.
Unfortunately, that would put me at odds with most parents. I can't even remember the last time I saw a toddler playing with actual blocks, let alone trying to read an actual book on their parents' knees.
2
When cell phones were still but a novelty for many in the mid 1990's, a stsuus symbol in Finland was one's noyt being thethered to their (flip) phone. My how times have not changed.
Having trouble meeting people? get off the phone. Having trouble taking with your lover/spouse, significant other/kids- put away the screen.
It;s a great tool. But really, do we all need to see what you had for dinner last night, and that your visit to X was "amazing" ?
it is not all por none, the American psychic norm. This is a tool It helps make our lives easiuer (or can), But it has become an addiction, skipping past the crutch.
Self contol= better quality of life
The west is doomed.
My extended family lives in a "third world country," three generations in a Town house (I know, "yuck, right").
Free child care, meals prepared communally, children playing with grandparents all weekend.
Oh, and they have no idea what "Autism" or "Dementia" are,
2
Wealthy people hire people to check, watch and talk to screens for them.
I went numb when I read this. I have one thought to share. Poor and middle class are compelled to live a manufactured reality but they make a sizeable chunk of the population. If rich is indeed turning human while keeping themselves “sanitized”, they have only created a manufactured reality composed of humans with artificial personalities, who are not after all very different from robogenies.
"The wealthy can afford to opt out of having their data and their attention sold as a product. The poor and middle class don’t have the same kind of resources to make that happen."
Actually, NOT buying screens for their children saves money; anyone can do this. Everyone should do this. This silly attack of envy of the wealthy is just silly and distracting.
Buying blocks, real actual tactile blocks, is the way to go.
Books, books and more books (can be had for free from library or hand-me-downs).
1
The whole world is insane because it would rather gamble and live in poverty than care and share. The world is owned by few families and the countries they control spend all their money on bombs and wars.
The social contract is beyond broken, it can be argued that it never was.
And don't forget the true money-makers that drives the "value" of the Internet: pornography and sex trafficking. No true barriers no matter the age of the viewer. That is what is driving our dehumanization so fast.
1
One needs to be careful conflating the state of growing old and poverty in general. While the old are often poor the example of Sox may say more about the isolation and loneliness experienced by many of the elderly than their economic status. Even the wealthy can be lonely. The comfort of Sox strikes one as near pathetic until the alternatives are considered.
Consider the concept of “forum” a “public place where ideas are exchanged.” From Rome to Reddit, from salons to saloons, from pubs to political parties, humans adjust their interaction to the technology of the day which affirms their near genetic-level-need to interact with other human beings. Contemporary America is an isolating place of single family dwellings, single occupant cars, and single apartments where our work tribe and social media tribe often provide our only connections. Retired and aging are often clueless about social media and the binding mission of working together is history, often not by choice. Random encounters risk rage if not of our political tribe. Even the wealthy suspect their hired advisors.
One can chastise the old for a lack of chutzpah to get out and socialize but the forums are fewer and more difficult to find. It is as much tribute to Artificial Intelligence to have created ersatz human beings as it is a damnation of our culture to have failed to provide adequate forums.
3
This opinion piece seems to be more concerned with making "woke" class warfare points about how the rich are different rather than a fact based argument that, well, the rich are different. No doubt some wealthier parents are limiting screen time, but this is not a quantifiable trend. My observations of the wealthy people I deal with is that they are just as screen obsessed, if not more, than average people. Also anecdotally, recent coverage of one of the daughters of actress Lori Laughlin who attends USC indicated that her entire life is documented online, and that her phone is an appendage. As for those people who don' t return emails, that behavior is class resistant, as rudeness is something many of the rich and the poor have in common.
1
@Achilles
The point of this op-ed is to show how in today's society, if you are poor, you're condemned to screen connections rather than real life connections.
Those screen connections can still make a huge difference in people's lives, as is the case with the Care.Coach program, but they also wreak a lot of havoc on children's and people's brains.
You can call it "class warfare" or something else, fact is that loneliness among the poor and even middle class has now become so bad that it literally destroys lives - which is why Britain even created a "Ministry of loneliness", in order to try to reduce this kind of massive, cultural disasters.
So either we take this problem seriously and start to organize our economies and societies in a different way, taking all the vital dimensions of a human life into account, or we continue to systematically shift more and more wealth to the wealthiest, bill after bill, all while forcing people to spend their time in such a way that real, deep, meaningful human connections become impossible.
It's up to us to choose what society we want in the 21st century, and that choice is first of all a political choice, but it's also a moral choice: now that we're the wealthiest country on earth, what values do we want to cultivate? What values do we want to build our society on? How to invest in the training of deep connection skills, and makes those trainings available to all citizens, regardless of income, for instance?
1
I spend my days telling kids to put away their phones and either log into a Chromebook or else pay attention to a projected image on the wall behind me.
I was at work yesterday. I am a nurse on a Labor and Delivery unit. My patient's husband was on his electronic device while his wife was writhing in pain, their 2 1/2 year old also had her own personal devices. The only sounds that came from the two year old were screams, when a screen went dead or a game was over in which the dad promptly gave her chocolate and then did something with her screen? At one point the child is screaming and the dad says, "Baby, there's no WIFI here" to which I replied, "Yes, we have WIFI" It was like Christmas for them.
Outside the door of my room, there were two nurses. I poked my head out because I needed help, both faces didn't look up, both were on social media, both slow to respond, facebook is that important.
This is a normal day. It's sad. While I love social media, the internet for figuring out how to do things, to expose me to things I wouldn't normally see or know about, if it was somehow taken away, I'd be so happy.
My perspective is different than most. I was hit by a truck on my bike. To the general public I look "healed", however my life has been irreparably damaged. Recently while walking, a woman almost hit me in the crosswalk when I had the right of way, then tried to say I vandalized her car... My husbands truck totaled when a woman ran a stop sign, her GPS didn't tell her to stop. While screens save money in some ways, their "true cost" is a loss that cannot be measured. I don't think it's worth it.
8
@Catalina-- It's a little disturbing to know that medical personnel are so involved with their phones that they neglect patients. Both nurses should have been reported. Perhaps suggest to administration that a rule be instituted prohibiting medical staff from using personal electronic devices on their shifts, unless it's an emergency. It's hard to believe a medical facility doesn't already have such a workplace rule.
1
@Catalina
What a horrible story indeed ... and yet so recognizable.
As a musician, I recently played with a group with a singer who lives far away from the guitarist, a friend he grew up with during his entire youth in his home country, and whose father, just like his own, had been a musician too (and both fathers had been friends all their lives).
They were extremely happy to meet after all those years, so the singer invited us to his home to have dinner together with his wife and two kids.
Once we were all at the table, however ... both his two kids, his wife, and ... his guitarist friend either silently checked and replied to Facebook messages on their phones, or showed their screens to each other to briefly talk about one of those messages.
I saw her utterly disappointed my singer was. And yet, there was nothing we could do. At a certain point, he told them that he didn't liked FB at all, that most of the messages were mainly negative. Nobody even looked up ... so he took out his own phone and went to ... FB.
That being said, I don't think the problem is screens in themselves.
The problem is that we've structured our society in such a way that we don't take the time to cultivate real, deep connections - neither with ourselves, nor with others. THAT's when we start to crave connecting so much that even the extremely superficial FB messages completely capture our attention - a welcome distraction from the stress caused by the absence of "connection" training ...
1
@Catalina
In my immediate family, we're nine adutls caring, loving, parenting, educating 5 kids. My eldest grandson got his first smartphone last year at 14.
We're no fans at all, of social media induced dopamine hits. Kid's internet exposure is strictly controlled. Some of our friends say we are nuts. We're not. We do not whish to be part of the uprooted crowd.
In my opinion, Google and all social media represents a far more sinister threat on open societies, than radical extremism or the dark web.
2
This is why I garden.
It’s just sad that it’s so difficult to hire actual people to care for seniors.
3
I don't understand why you wouldn't want a real cat, with real contact, as opposed to an animated one. yes, there's some care involved, and some expense, but for people who want interaction but don't want to be walking dogs, they would seem to be ideal.
5
@Lev Raphael
This cat is so much better because it's merely a tool for attentive, caring people on the other side of the screen to interact with you.
No cat will ever tell you not to drink soda and take a bottle of water instead, for instance ... ;-)
I have read that many wealthy Silicon Valley parents don’t want their kids to be on Facebook, Instagram, etc. Typical CA behavior, completely lacking in moderation and practicality. Phones and social media are great, used in moderation and kept in perspective. But of course this isn’t popular because it’s not trend-setting and disruptive, even if it’s true.
1
Is this sad, or what? Or the new normal, as we feel isolated from each other...in real life? After all, we are social animals, and loneliness kills.
5
Interesting and certainly provocative. However this article would have benefited tremendously from some data to support the claims about these alleged general trends. Hard data to collect for sure but it otherwise is built on examples rather than aggregated carefully collected data.
1
"Many enrolled in the avatar program at Element Care were failed by the humans around them or never had a community in the first place, and they became isolated, said Cely Rosario, the occupational therapist who frequently checks in on participants. Poor communities have seen their social fabric fray the most, she said."
I've witnessed this firsthand.
First of all, our society forces poor people to have no serious access to education (putting them on school banks with other kids who at home have parents who lovingly teach them how to do their homework, are curious about what they learned that day at school etc, isn't helping them at all).
Secondly, when those kids grow up, we force them to do meaningless, ill-paid jobs, which means that as a society, we force them to have no time to build meaningful connections with other people as they have to combine two or more jobs (and even then can't pay a T1 apartment, in many cities), all while refusing them to build meaningful connections on the work floor.
And then, when they become parents themselves, they tell their kids that they have to "work hard" at school because school for them is like daddy's job: highly unpleasant and meaningless,but what you have to do in life to survive. If you know that learning without cultivating the joy of curiosity is impossible, it becomes clear how those parents unwillingly make their kids hate school.
And then... there's fortunately FB to distract the entire family from so much stress...
(2/2)
And then when those people get old, the main problem is that they've never learned how to build meaningful connections.
So now they finally have the time to do so, but they've never been able to train this innate human skill, on the one hand, whereas on the other hand, IF they're lucky and still meet at least some people, those people belong to the same, deeply isolating culture, so they never learned to do so either.
A symptom of this culture is that we imagine that older people need "occupational therapists". What a horrible word!
Why would we want to "occupy" our seniors. Occupy until what? Until death comes?
Condemning people to see life as a mere distraction from death is the absolutely worst way to treat our fellow human beings.
No wonder people's brains start to actively shut down, with their cortex thinning, Alzheimer on the rise etc.
Neurological studies show that the quality of the connection you've learned to build with yourself, determines the quality of the connections you'll have with other people.
Neither most of our jobs nor our entertainment industry (nor, in many cases, our churches) teach kids and people how to deeply connect with themselves.
Cultures who do, have such a tremendous respect for their elderly precisely because they've become such experts in wisdom and loving, deep connection.
Technology allowed us to search for information all over the world. Now, we need to learn to "search inside yourself", as Chade Meng-Tan wrote.
1
It's too bad that so many people have never learned how to function on their own. Living alone is stigmatized as being abnormal somehow, yet those who do live alone learn coping skills that help them avoid loneliness. Naturally, when a person has been surrounded by other people her entire life--siblings, parents, roommates, spouses, children--suddenly being alone late in life can be traumatic. Living alone is sort of a learned skill--how to entertain yourself, make decisions yourself, cope with disappointment, illness or problems yourself. This ability takes some practice. I encourage people to spend time alone as much as possible. Weekends away from family, even vacationing alone, to hone the coping mechanisms they might need as they age. After all, if we live long enough, we'll outlive our friends and family. Being alone is the inevitable ending to most lives. But, it needn't be depressing or dreary.
2
@Ms. Pea
There's a difference between LIVING and BEING alone.
You can live alone and not be lonely at all.
Many non-Western communities have organized their societies in such a way that deep, meaningful relationships continue to be build until your very last day. And it's precisely in those communities that the world's oldest people are living today (see Japan for instance).
On the other hand, you can be surrounded physically by family and colleagues all your life, and simultaneously be horribly lonely - as is happening for so many people today. That's because human beings need MEANINGFUL connections. As the Care.Coach program shows here, those meaningful connections can even be installed through an avatar on a screen, IF the avatar is merely a tool for other human beings to pay real attention to the person using the program.
Conclusion: in order to survive, be healthy and thrive, human beings need deep, meaningful connections - whether present physically, or on screen. You have a deep connection with someone when you know that that person is truly interested in your own inner landscape, and can lovingly practice what is called "deep listening": to pay attention to no matter what you're feeling and thinking and going through, whether positive or negative. When you know you can call her when you need this, and are there for her too, THAT is when a relationship and both persons thrive. Not when you have dinner each day with your family but everybody's on his FB page...
If the general public understood the reality of our biological & neurological development, how attachment occurs and its extreme importance in our health and well-being, we'd be putting down screens in droves.
12
"There is a small movement to pass a “right to disconnect” bill, which would allow workers to turn their phones off, but for now a worker can be punished for going offline and not being available."
This is obviously extremely urgent. In France, they already passed a bill that gives workers the right to turn them off at night and during the weekends/holidays. As burnout is one of the main reasons people have to stop working altogether, today, this is clearly a step in the right direction.
We do will need more than that though. As Johann Hari shows in "Lost Connections", the main cause of depression is losing real connection with others - and as a consequence yourself. Whereas a truly amazing French philosopher, Abdennour Bidar, wrote a book about how we will only be able to end the many crises in the world today IF we all learn how to become "weavers", who actively weave together the lost fabric of our society.
The reason why people flock to screens is quite obvious: to literally try to connect with other people again - which is often is exactly what those screens allow us to do.
The problem is rather that we as individuals, don't know how to develop DEEP connections anymore, connections based on deep listening, focus, kindness, compassion and respect. Many internet "connections" are extremely superficial - as are many of our real life connections.
So now, we need to build a "right to connect" movement, where REAL connection becomes our political goal - on and off screen.
8
Artificial and lacking in merit. This pieces is such an obvious contrivance especially to those who have eschewed TV for decades. Of course humans, even the wealthiest, have to engage in face-to-face transactions such as buying real estate. Until that is done at one remove I will maintain the author's viewpoint is without validity.
1
@Tournachonadar
What the care.coach program shows, on the contrary, is that a very specific kind of human attention (created by the real world human beings at the other end of the screen, and then communicated by a screen/artificial avatar) is that they are highly effective in reducing mortal loneliness in isolated people.
The author's point is to show that in the meanwhile, wealthy people can afford to skip the artificial intermediary, and invest in situations that allow them to connect in real life.
So he's inviting us to question today's society, where what is vital in order to survive as an individual - human contact - is now becoming a luxury good.
2
@Tournachonadar
Your reply suggests that you work in the tech industry or a business that relies on replacing real humans with technology, do you? Or have you just bought in to the hype? Do you have kids in school struggling because they are being taught basic subjects by PowerPoint slides or videos instead of textbooks and live discussions or real lab experiments?Have you ever tried to get a company to address an issue for you only to be forced to deal with an inefficient digital assistant or a chat room or be bombarded by ads for products rather than be able to speak to a live person who can help? All of these are problems that have arisen from the replacement of live humans with cheaper and less valuable digital alternatives. The Silicon Valley elites and the wealthy know this but it makes them money so they don’t care and their money allows them to avoid the problems for themselves and their families.
4
@Tournachonadar You obviously don't live in Vancouver and bunch of other cities where real estate is bought and sold via the internet all the time, often with zero human interaction. Many are investors living overseas who don't need to bother spending time & money travelling to see the property or an agent in person, since they won't necessarily be living there. "Neighbours" are becoming a thing of the past—and that is yet another factor in urbanites' growing lack of human engagement.
1
I'm an economist, and one of the basic questions (idea, actually) that we learn is "compared to what?" Like just about everything else that we humans encounter, screen time and reliance on computers of one sort or another have both benefits and costs, and the trick is to find the right place somewhere away from the extremes. I'm not convinced that we won't get over our love affair that involves over-dosing on screens -- after all we did evolve for millenia as social animals. Meanwhile, isn't Mr. Langlois better off with Sox than without it?
5
@joel bergsman
A reply as lacking in soul as the contrivance described in this pitiless story.
@joel bergsman, that is a rational observation. There is great benefit in having “eyes-on” for an elderly person who lives alone (or who lives with an elderly partner who may not be fully tuned in). I think that benefits may outweigh the creepiness of the Care.Coach avatar. In another post I mentioned an older relative I lost, who might have survived had there meet an in-home monitor like this. This was someone who had friends and loving relatives, and who did get out and engage with the world. But when you live alone and are ailing, things can happen, and the world assumes you are fine. And days can pass before anyone notices a change in your activity pattern.
To all the people tut-tutting over this article, I ask you whether you are always aware what your elderly friends and relatives are up to. Do you phone them weekly? Check in every few days, or even daily? Visit occasionally? Hire a home aide for them (who keeps tabs on the home aide?)?What about the moments when they are alone? If they aren’t reachable, how many days go by before you go and check on them (or have someone else check)?
Just as I check in with Alexa each day (for news and weather) and tell “her” to read my Audible books to me (another form of keeping me company), I can imagine keeping company with an avatar like Sox when I am old and limited in my activities. It’s comforting to have people check on you. See you. Acknowledge your humanity.
Throughout Mexico and the southern Americas are people who need to flee their homelands because of poverty, violence, and climate disruption. They would be very happy to provide elder and child care, to work as aides in classrooms, and to serve customers in restaurants and stores. There are enough humans willing to work and to share our common humanity. Think about it.
51
@Georgina
Of course you are right -- but people require food and housing and medical care... and there can be conflict when needs do not align! (E.g. in the cases of erratic sleep patterns.)
1
@Georgina Once again Mexico is conflated with countries in far more dire condition. Mexico’s government does not terrorize irs own citizens, instead provides a plethora of social programs. The vast majority of Mexicans do not wish to come to the United States, and if they do can’t wait to go home, which is why there is more traffic going south over the border than north. Though materially poorer, Mexicans on average are more content than Americans as life in many ways is more pleasant here. The winner is media propaganda, the loser our ignorant population.
4
"Conspicuous human interaction — living without a phone for a day, quitting social networks and not answering email — has become a status symbol."
My decidedly non-smart cell phone gathers dust in my glove box just in case I ever have to make an emergency call. I always joked I wasn't important (or highly paid) enough to be in contact 24/7, but now it turns out I was merely a trend setter and très chic. Who knew I was so far behind the curve I was actually cool?
15
Technology is filling in the cultural decay. Caring for the elderly has been a race to the bottom for forever in America. Home life and family development are becoming a fantasy only for the wealthy. So yes, we will leverage technology to cheaply-yet-with-still-unknown-consequences deliver childcare, elder care and other things that distract us from endlessly consuming or seeking pleasure.
11
@Chad
But technology is also the cause of cultural decay. It's a feedback loop.
5
@Chad
Technology is not the “cause” of cultural decay, but it is a factor – probably a catalyst.
A profound and unwelcome side effect of the technology addiction of the masses. If we embrace our screens of any sort for "socializing" we will eventually realize the false and fake nature of on-screen friendships.
10
As I get older I notice how much mobility and money affect our access to real human experiences.
24
Compare teens at school bus stops 20 or 30 years ago to now. Before tech, teens socialized at the bus stop, look at one now, and they all silently stand there staring at their smart phone lined up like zombies. I could care less if I had a smart phone or not, I'd rather talk to myself than talk to an animation for company...
21
You could say that this is one more example of tech jumping the shark. It’s doubtful you’d see a decline in screen time soon but the fact that the elites are disconnecting is likely a leading indicator with a 20-year time lag. This only means that screens might be facing twilight. Digital assistants with voice recognition appear to be taking the place of screens.
2
@Denis
In 20 years, the non-elite will be scrambling away from the coasts and the south and be unable to afford screens.
1
a progressive humane engagement...a loss revisiting?:
a wonderful world.
Ms. Bowles writes, "...any activity that can happen on a screen becomes cheaper."
To this I say, yes, in economic terms, but also in terms of its intrinsic value.
Developing a relationship through a screen devalues the nature of what defines a relationship -- whether that's a "friend", a teacher, or a caregiver.
The only antidote is to unplug: maybe not all day, and maybe not all the time -- but enough to remind ourselves that human engagement need not be a privilege.
12
Kind of a non event, if the elderly want to talk to computers, what’s wrong with it? Not many people coming in to speak to them I suspect.
1
@There, that was simply an example, and not presented as a bad thing in itself. But the article spoke to more that that. The use of screens in schools, the substitution for actual life skills, of cell phone demands for life access by bosses, and more are referenced here. I might add the incentives for online doctor "visits" that minimize information and observation of a real meeting. And other examples abound. These losses of human contact can and do have real effects, many not good.
5
As a decorative artist, I work primarily for well-off or very wealthy families and the trend over the last decade is to have large-screen televisions all over the house. Many living rooms have enormous framed mirrors above the fireplace behind which are enormous TV's whose images show through the special glass. Moreover, the wealthiest have iPads mounted in the walls of every room, controlling lighting and temperature. Even the outside kitchens and sitting rooms, only partly enclosed, have gigantic televisions. More and more screens is what I see among the well off, not less.
17
It’s ironic that I just read this article on my iPad but I do agree that less screen time is better. The iPhone and iPad were meant to be tools to improve our lives by making it more efficient. I know there are many readers who might read this comment and agree with me that people are choosing to replace human interaction with screen time. I have read articles stating that the addictive quality of apps like Facebook, Instagram is akin to consuming sugar, alcohol, or inhaling nicotine laced tobacco products. It’s probably a combination of both. I see so many people buried in their phones while waiting in line, at the gym, eating in restaurants, sitting in traffic...when you try and start a conversation with them, they look at you as if you’re mad. Human connection doesn’t have to be a luxury for the rich. Put the phone down and start talking to a fellow human being...it’s a lot easier than you think.
16
Overall I liked the article however I don’t fully agree with the stratification of people on screen vs not into elite vs not or people with status symbol vs not. I would specifically like to call out the sub heading that makes this association upfront creating a bit of bias going into the article. Furthermore, the broad classification of “all” screen time is also not correct.
I feel it would have been more impactful to associate with better sense of self, happiness, emotional security etc. because (1) lesser screen time gives more time to do other things like play music, read, play a board game with kids, learn new skills, etc. , and (2) I don’t think people choose to stay away from screen or social media to attain certain “elite” status. They choose to do so because they have come to realization that it is not adding value to their lives.
I am guilty of screen time for reading NY Times, Kindle, Blogs etc but I came out of Facebook and all other social media many years ago because I did not see value in knowing about people sitting in Changi Airport, or reading angry tweets which used to bring unnecessary negativity in me for inconsequential matters. I experimented with one week at a time and I never felt the need to go back to social media. And, most importantly, I don’t like the classification into “elite”, especially in today’s environment, where “elite” has been made to have negative connotations.
10
I find this to be both sad and a little bit frightening. For those with a dystopian mind set it's easy to envision a future in which computers with AI raise our children and comfort the elderly. After that humans coevolve with machines into something we don't recognize as human society. There are quite a few movies and SF novels with this as a theme, and, as Oscar Wilde once pointed out, "life imitates art."
9
I will have to reread this, but I'm not sure the author provides any statistics to back up her claim that screenless time is for rich elites. Ever since the advent of the cell phone, I've been known as this person who simply will not obey its "call." I leave it behind when I go places (sometimes intentionally, sometimes by accident), and I refuse to suddenly become a person everyone can reach because they want to. I don't always wish to be reached. Don't bother me. Yes, I like people, I have some friends and lots of family, but when did it become your right to reach me? I hope the author is not a millennial, because that would confirm my suspicions of a very general worldview. I was at a meeting last week where a young person asked me how I could forget my phone when I left my house, as I had just done, and I laughed and laughed.
16
This man would make an excellent foster parent for real cats. The shelter usually pays for the food and the vet care. All he would have to provide is the love and care.
Also, as for people who say he shouldn't adopt because of his age-he's only 68 . Also, he is married, so his spouse could care for the cat in the event something happens to him. He would be a perfect candidate to adopt an older cat (the ones who have the hardest time finding an adopter). Many shelters have senior to senior programs to match older adopters with older cats. As for vet bills, there are veterinary clinics for low income people. Some shelters even run their own veterinary service. I don't know how close he is to mspca-angell but they seem to have many programs to help with veterinary care.
51
I happily live with a pair of German Shepherds. I have chickens that I choose not to eat. I rescue many animals. I count myself as very lucky. The screen is hostile.
18
"Mr. Langlois’s wife wants a digital pet, and his friends do too, but this Sox is his own. He strokes her head on the screen to wake her up."
Mr. Langlois's wife is out of the house most of the day because she probably still works. Retiring and living on a relatively low income should not relegate one to Sox. Maybe the Langlois's should spend more time with one another.
"remember how caring the Lord was,”--was? Is if one is willing to do something about it. Let Mr. Langlois also seek some company in his church (which he must have if he talks like this).
As for the luxury of human contact, around a year ago the New Yorker ran a piece about renting families, also for human contact, in Japan:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/japans-rent-a-family-industry
These are middle class who rent. At least they seek human contact. The US letters to the editor were surprisingly negative.
There is nothing wrong with contact on a screen, but even the non-rich can still establish and enjoy the "luxury" of occasional human contact if one works at it.
5
This is self imposed. Guess what? The world will not end if you walk outside without your phone. You can go for hours without one and everything will be OK.
I know it will make you, all jittery, but try it for an hour or so once per week. Work your way up to a whole day once per week. Now take a real risk, go on a date where both of your agree to leave you phones at home. It may be awkward at first, because you will have to actually talk to each other, have eye contact, learn to read body language, and perhaps talk to other real people. If you are brave, and forward thinking, you may actually start a trend: Experiencing real life in the here and now!! How Zen! Live in the moment, grasshopper! (Don't look it up, ask a real old person).
18
Why are we shocked at this outcome? The worst invasion of the screen was the TV. We haven’t yet come to terms with how that has zombie-fied us, and continues to do so.
I got rid of TV from my life. What a revelation! I won’t have broadcast taking up psychic space where I live. Granted, I have my iPhone and laptops. But I limit the laptops to only ops I can’t do on my phone.
There used to be a difference between “push media” and “pull media.” Until this article I still believed there was. TV and all advertising is push media. It is pushed on the viewer who haplessly presses the on button. Digital is pull media, or it used to be. We must direct the input. We must go to the webpage; we curate our information stream. It isn’t the pure passivity of sitting in front of the boob tube, but it’s worse. It’s now insinuating itself into our lives in a more addictive way.
There are lots of articles warning us about the ill health of “smart” phone living. There were plenty of articles railing against TV. Little difference they made.
7
This is utter nonsense - and no study or statistics are cited.
Rich and middle class alike spend an inordinate amount of time on their smart phones, tablets and laptops - streaming or connecting socially.
And the rich are just as likely to ski in Aspen and party in NYC and the Hampton’s as the middle class are playing basketball or hanging out in Central Park or at a baseball stadium.
Yes, Rich and not so rich lead very different lives - but screen time isn’t that different.
14
totally agree with this comment. i tutor wealthy and not wealthy students via Skype and ALL of them want to be on screens constantly. this author cites no statistics to back up these spurious claims, well said Richard.
4
I wonder if one day rich will not regret that they cut off the rest of the world, that they spent life on nice activities with close circle of friends while other people sometimes on the other side of the globe, who you can reach only via screen, were dying.
6
To those that recommend His getting a real cat... at his level of poverty, food and cat litter and vet bills would be unaffordable.
11
I find this a bizarre direction with strong whiffs of 1984ish Big Brother potential risk. How about just getting a puppy and going for a healthy stroll to a dog park where at least the owner's dog will interact, and eventually, so will the owner.
7
I once bought a specially designed movie for my dog to watch. Fortunately, she showed no interest in it at all. She had sense!!
1
Mark Zuckerberg’s dream come true! Millions of people never leaving home so they can stare at a screen all day. Why even bother having a spouse or children when you can enjoy an electronic cat that won’t argue or snore.
If this is where our aging civilization is heading, we need to anticipate a major epidemic of loneliness and increased rates of depression. People crave genuine interactions to feel alive and to grow. The more we rely on screens to fulfill our needs as opposed to real people, the more we lose our ability to empathIze with those who may share different views from our own. It’s happening already.
The time has come to find solutions that use technology to enhance opportunities for genuine social engagement, not replace them. Private and public resources should be investing in social infrastructures such as modernized libraries where people can meet and share ideas, take a class together. And then a driverless car is waiting to take you home when the day is done.
12
"'Pagers were important to have because it was a signal that you were an important, busy person,' said Joseph Nunes, chairman of the marketing department at the University of Southern California, who specializes in status marketing."
Is there anyone at USC who DOESN'T specialize in status marketing? Good Lord, Trojans. Throw this Nunes guy and the Loughlin girls out, get an entirely different collection of faculty, students, and staff, and reform yourselves.
7
One observation comes to mind: people whose attentions are wholly absorbed by screens along with their auditory senses being compromised by ear buds, a common sight, are very vulnerable to predation. It says something good about our society that crimes of opportunity such as mugging have become rarer. Physical predation is one thing, predation by soulless corporations is entirely another matter. As technological innovation continues apace, is it too much to ask that its uses be put to the benefit of all instead of the enrichment of a few?
7
My parents are extremely fortunate to live in a well-planned retirement community. They have lots of activities to engage in, from single time events like a mini lunch boat cruise, to exercise classes for various ability levels, to volunteer opportunities. As their health care needs grow, their community is able to meet their changing needs quickly.
Not everyone can afford to retire as well, including me. My goal is to stay healthy and keep working in some capacity.
Social avatars are a substitute for a need for human connection. I think it is better ro have face time with old friends at Mc Donalds, but maybe people will confess things like suicidal ideation to an avatar that they would never mention to a friend.
4
An insightful and interesting article. However, the comparison of a MacBook and Chromebook is not an apples to apples measure (pun intended). Why not compare a MacBook from the 1984 to the current MacBook? The Chromebook comparison makes the price difference seem larger than in fact it is.
9
Recent history informs us that life is dichotomized between those that can afford high tech, and those that cannot: I don’t know whose working class life is “increasingly mediated by screens”, but no one that I know.
1
Brave New World and 1984 are both coming true in a way that neither Huxley nor Orwell quite predicted.
7
This is just the beginning of the movement away from excessive screen time. I am retired with plenty of time and a family with grand kids and groups of friends. I use no social media and tell everyone that I respond to emails only in the early am (news scanning) or very late afternoon (news, again) because my computer is off the rest of the time. I carry a flip phone for emergency contact. Life is good; no, it is great. Why would I waste it being mesmerized by a screen?
28
@Mister Ed
Good for you. And now imagine someone who is retired with no family, and whose best friends are far away now. I=phone or flip phone, it doesn't ring much. She would like to grow flowers, but she lives in a small condominium apartment. She likes books, but because of poor eyesight can only read enlarged print on the computer screen. Movies and books/newspapers on screen and lonely walks are about all she has.
17
There is a lot of power and appeal to all the tech created over the last few decades, as evinced by its rapid penetration into human societies all around the planet. It does a powerful lot of good.
But it needs to come with one of those black label warnings, too. The warnings that indicate the potential for harm to the user. It is also one of the most powerful, albeit digital, narcotics we have ever produced. Addiction can be rapid and complete.
So all use should be proscribed by rationality; and before their minds are fully formed it most certainly should be limited in the hands of all underage children. However right now we are in full thrall to it and have not yet inculcated the dangers into ourselves.
I am convinced we will all eventually come to this conclusion, but just like the ills of smoking was a multi-generational process of coming to an understanding of its ills I have every faith that it will be an equally long time to establish a proper perspective on this....drug.
The key is in watching the way in which the elite privileged deal with it with their children. In this instance they are our canaries in a coal mine. Their actions, unconscious or otherwise, indicate we have gone too far in the use of this narcotic. It is time to pull back and establish new patterns of use. Not everything can be solved by tech, nor should we try to make it so.
John~
American Net'Zen
6
Our world is transforming into iWorld and we can’t do anything about it. We can moan or get angry, but this process won’t stop. I think we ought to get accustomed to this and start learning how to balance iWorld and RealWorld. If it goes how it is going now, our children will live in a iiiWorld, so they have to learn early. It is sad to watch sometimes, but it’s life.
My choice is to live in two worlds at the same time, without going to some holy war against internet and “world degradation”. Each world can bring me a lot of emotions, knowledge and information, each world has its dangers and drawbacks. I think it’s better for survival and adaption to learn them both.
And one more thing. If I really want to talk to smb, my iPhone will not stop me from doing that. If it can prevent me from meeting someone in real life, was this meeting worth it?)
2
I have spent a fair amount of time among very wealthy people and greatly prefer my iphone to them.
29
So, the rich will continue to have a use for us? We should be grateful for their kindness in allowing us to live in the world they control in so many ways.
13
I find this incredibly sad and frightening. My finances are precarious as I deal with very serious health issues. I wonder when I become elderly if I'll be so poor that a fake talking animated cat on a screen will be offered as an only option as a friend. It's a dystopian nightmare.
In the meantime, my dog sleeps next to me on the bed giving off little yips as he dreams. He's now elderly and it's difficult to manage his health bills, but a living breathing cat is much less expensive to keep. I should know, as I had many cats when I was younger. At the time I could barely afford to pay for my own food, yet I still always managed to be able to feed and care for each cat, and they were wonderful companions.
Fortunately, none of my dogs or cats spoke to me. A big part of having a cat or dog is the incredible power of nonverbal communication. Besides, I usually already knew what they'd say if they could.
Finally, I question all the suppositions in this piece. Tech companies exist to make money. Any model professing to be free isn't, or is only free at first, or goes out of business. Further, what people say of their lives can often have little to do with their actual lives. My wife and I, along with our dog, spent time last summer with some friends who live in a phenomenally wealthy beach community. We'd go to beach every night and watch the stars as all the uber-rich people sat on that beach looking at their phones, totally ignoring each other, and the glorious sky and sea.
43
The tablet: Another mass-market product introduced to the world by Americans, like cars, and televisions, which on the whole reduces the quality of life and separates human beings from one another.
12
Yesterday, while at a local store, every person I encountered was tethered to their phone and having a loud conversation.
There's an epidemic of disinterest in others and in how this noise pollution is affecting both their own lives and the lives of others who encounter them.
I don't take my phone in to the gym. I'm there to get a good workout and not to log every darn exercise as it happens, or to take or make a call that can clearly wait. Nothing is so important that it can't be put off for a few minutes or an hour.
As this article clearly indicates, there's a proliferation of products now offered to income-limited consumers. There's money to be made, and screen addictions to be fostered.
Wealthier consumers have realized the negative outcome of rampant and unlimited screen time for their children. The rest of the population must catch up.
There's no replacement for face-to-face interaction and friendship. I see too many lonely people who only have interactions with their phones, screens, or fake Facebook friends.
We're losing human kindness to our tech.
35
It is especially sad to see a couple on a date, seated across from each other in a nice rstaurant, staring at their phones, rather than engaging with each other.
3
Never signed up with any social media and currently spend about $40 per year for all my phone needs. I disliked phones before the cell/smartphone obsession began and ignored the dictum that one 'had' to have one. I have never regretted it.
11
@Plennie Wingo
I would whole heartedly agree with you here on this NYT comment page if weren't for the fact that the irony would literally paralyze me for the whole day and I gotta go skiing in a couple of hours.
2
Good to know that I'm so far ahead of my time. I deleted my Facebook account ten years ago. I realized after six months that it was just a megaphone for people's egos. Including my own. I couldn't bear that.
Breaking the addiction of social media is not a "status symbol' as the subtitle suggests. The movement away from this shiny object that carries no real worth is just the pendulum swinging back to where it should be.
I imagine the social media companies will dangle newer and shinier objects to keep people liking and friending and clicking. In much the same way that the drug companies had to come up with something more addictive than crack or meth.
Got to keep those dollars rolling.
27
@Gig
Social media was and always will be a money-extraction racket with a benevolent face. We are beginning to find out differently. It's about time.
16
There is a science fiction novel where people never interact directly with anyone but only by "viewing" them on screen. I don't remember the name or author but likely someone else will. The characters find that meeting anyone other than a spouse or close family member in person is shocking and offensive. Somewhat prescient.
8
@Tundra Green
It's by E. M. Forster, of all people. "The Machine Stops"
A great story, and getting more real all the time, as machines do more and more.
This excellent article about "Sox" was one of the most depressing I have ever read. I personally would find avatars acceptable only for people with absolutely no friends. And a technician across the world who watches you all the time? Really creepy and dangerous.
We do not need to be on screens all the time. No one is forcing us to use them (except perhaps employers). The famous old saw: What did people do before xxx? They read, they talked, they walked, they saw live entertainment, they had parties, they ate out. Teen-agers have a special need for contact with peers. Texts or postings don't cut it. Talk on the phone. And turn it off at bed-time.
We now know it is vital to talk to young children as soon as they are born. Screens talking to them are not the same as a live human.
I refuse to join any social media. I do spend time on the "screen", but to read the news, answer emails from friends and organizations I support. Period.
I feel truly sorry for people whose work requires their electronic availability 24/7. I think that someday soon, workers will refuse to participate in this torture. I'm glad I retired before my university really started using the internet.
24
George Orwel's 1984.
Try going out the door without your phone occasionally. Don’t carry it to the gym to text between each set. I left my phone at home while out for dinner on Friday night. Not once did I feel the absence. Each of the other dining party would glance occasionally at theirs. When my kids visit me, there are no phones used at meals. If I speak to one of them, they must put the phone screen down for the short interval we converse if they cannot resist the glow having it face up.
11
And, to add, as rude as it may seem — What is the point of family members come to visit when they spend the ENTIRE time staring at their phone screens with earbuds plugged in to boot ?Why have a guest who treats a family visit as such ? Better to save the anguish of trying to engage in conversation with anyone who is elsewhere and cannot disconnect.
16
"A toddler who learns to build with virtual blocks in an iPad game gains no ability to build with actual blocks, ..."
Some public libraries have blocks and many other things that can be checked out. Such a collection is called a "Library of Things". Some things are as simple as a baking pan, and others are as complex as a telescope.
"... separating from screens is harder for the poor and middle class."
Public libraries are open to anyone, and they still have books. Some libraries also support a variety of activities such as reading groups, story times, and maker labs (which have tools, such as sewing machines and 3D printers, for making things).
See the Wikipedia articles on:
* "Library of Things"
* "Maker culture"
* "Storytelling"
* "Book discussion club"
24
@FMP Mythbusters covered something like this in Episode 234, Unfinished Business. They proved that learning a skill on a screen is almost totally ineffective compared to learning it from a human being.
7
@Robert David South: "... learning a skill on a screen is almost totally ineffective compared to learning it from a human being."
Thanks for the Mythbusters 234 example, which involves learning to play golf. Having a coach is obviously helpful, but actually practicing is more helpful. As for playing with blocks, no coach should be required ... :-)
This article screams with the sadness of the human condition—and our endlessly misguided efforts to try to fix (and run from) it. Alienation is not new. Bots and screens are simply another of our modern cries for help.
We haven’t done so well nurturing and cherishing one another on this planet, instead believing everything is ours to (ab)use as we choose. Look at our societies, our infrastructures, our cultures, our planet in their various stages of neglect, decay, war, and fear. When we come to our senses, we will begin to know and treasure our wonder rather than bemoan our wretchedness. And in so realizing, we will touch the true meaning of Love and of all of life’s interconnectedness.
39
A well balanced of both human and screen contact would be ideal as we can learn from both. Just as a well balanced diet is good for your health.
6
@Yvonne Re: "A well balanced of both human and screen contact would be ideal as we can learn from both. Just as a well balanced diet is good for your health."
I think this comment is symptomatic. Does your idea of a "well-balanced diet" include equal portions of food and plastic? However practical or unavoidable "screen contact" may be, no amount of it is "ideal", just as no amount of plastic ingestion is "ideal".
10
@Jake Barnes
Jake lectured sanctimoniously while tapping on a keyboard and staring into a screen.
Good lord! Calling Dr. Festinger!
This is another one of those things that makes me wish the internet would die, and soon, before we lose all traces of the things we had that facilitated real life before it arrived.
38
Since when is human interaction so wonderful? There is always a possibility of delight, but it's rare. The "screen" illusion is like others.
""So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
5
I like Mr. Wang a lot.
The Care.coach program made me sad at first — I think the writer was purposely skewing the cat avatar as a pitiful thing — but the truth is the main motivation behind it is compassionate (even if they talk about saving money for public services). It’s also better than the loneliness and inadequate or nonexistent supervision that might be the case without Care.coach. I lost a family member to that kind of isolation, and if a computer camera and a bank of human employees in Asia could have changed that outcome I would be all for it.
I do worry about the lack of privacy, though. It seems like something that could be abused. Hacked, perhaps.
I disagree with the writer’s too-pat conclusions about social and economic power and screen use. What I see in my life is the rich and powerful as addicted to their screens as everyone else. It is true that many are sending their kids to screen-limited schools, though. But even those Waldorf kids (I know many) are on their devices when they aren’t in school. Like every other kid. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Why would you want them to not be engaged with the world? With their peers?
10
@Passion for Peaches
Looking at a screen is the opposite of being engaged with the world. And do you mean texting is being engaged with their peers? How about talking to them, on a phone, if necessary?
4
@akamai, being engaged with the world is being connected to what is going on elsewhere (you on longline reading a newspaper, for example). And the way to do that is through the Internet. It is absurd to cut a child off from the jungle drums of texting with his or her friends, and to deny the child of at least a dose of social media. That is how the world operates these days. Kids do not talk on the phone. They text.
This is a quandary that we face repeatedly in human anthropology. Another example of this is that well-to-do seek out organic food while the others often rely on pesticide laden agriculture. Dr. Paul Muller who developed DDT (now banned) won the Nobel prize ! Because it truly was a game changer at that time. Research at universities and quick commercialization led to the green revolution. Growing immaculate lawns and flowers laden with pesticides was also a status symbol once, and now in coastal California, many people now claim "Brown is the new green'
10
So this is how we're going to deal with our aging population? Fake cats, and then a doctor's image rolling in on a motorized tablet to inform a patient they're dying. Why not create government funded jobs caring for the elderly. Take some money from the military budget, or tax the rich. Then people can have real face to face, meaningful contact, instead of screens.
121
I don’t know where human life is leading to. As it’s human interaction is getting reduced day by day. No sudden visits to the homes of close friends and relatives. No frequent phone calls. Life has become more or less robotic. Very unhappy and unfortunate situation indeed.
26
The opening to this essay, the story of Sox, seems eerily reminiscent of the 2013 movie "Her" with Joaquin Phoenix, where he falls in love with a computer avatar. The movie diverges and eventually he makes some human contact.
Maybe if some of the computer constructions led to further human contact, the story might not seem so eerie and yet so understandable. I wonder if some of this will eventually move us in the direction of more human contact--but I would not bet on it.
11
Milton Pedraza, the chief executive of the Luxury Institute, advises companies on how the wealthiest want to live and spend, and what he has found is that the wealthy want to spend on anything human.
Timely explanation for what Patriots owner Robert Kraft was up to at that Florida massage parlour.
31
@Leigh, ba-dah-bing!
@Leigh
And of course Kraft is publically shamed and facing punishment for desiring consensual human contact. The US is a sick society and culture.
“I found something so reliable and someone so caring, and it’s allowed me to go into my deep soul and remember how caring the Lord was,” Mr. Langlois said.
That is such a sad statement. The truth is The Lord is still caring and forever will be. If only people knew, their life would never be the same anymore.
10
@Cindy
Well, Cindy, I guess we all need something artificial, sowmething made up, like a screen or belief in a universe that cares to feel something other than sadness.
This is beautifully, achingly written.
20
As always we can look to the medical profession to lead the way. A few years ago I went to a hospital waiting room. There was no magazine in sight, only a giant screen which ran non-stop drug ads on a loop. When I complained about it, I was told the staff had no ability to stop or lower the volume on it and if I wanted I could wait in the hallway.
131
@LI
That's why I bring a book to any appointment and for any ride on mass transit. Not a phone, a book.
As for your specific situation, I would tell the doctor that if that TV isn't turned off, you're switching doctors (assuming you can).
If it's not illegal, it should be illegal to show drug commercials to a captive audience.
35
@LI Even the doctors nowadays spend more time facing the screen than facing you.
7
This is so sad on a number of levels, although I think the article conflates several problems into one issue.
In the case of Mr. Langlois featured here, and in fact for so many others who are older, disabled etc. they are starved for human contact and involvement. Mr. Langlois doesn't need a screen "kitty" manned by someone in the Philippines "talking" to him. He needs family, friends and community right where he is to take an interest in him. He needs to get off of his recliner and get involved in his community; do volunteer work, do something for others, get connected. His age(68) isn't really all that old; unless he's horribly physically/mentally debilitated he should be capable of doing many things still.
The example given of the woman who stopped using hospital emergency rooms for social visits once provided a screen "friend" is a really good example of why our current system is a failure. I'm guessing that she was able to get a ride to the emergency room(or doctor's office) through Medicaid and so as that was the only way she was ever able to go anywhere and see people, that is what she did. Our current system WILL pay for elders/disabled to go visit doctors via a free car ride in may areas but it WON'T pay to take them to church, BINGO, a yoga class, a knitting group, social functions etc; so what do we expect?
The use of screens as substitutes for quality teaching is a whole other issue. Schools were sold on screens and have yet to see benefits from this.
113
@Greenie What I've seen at my work is that many older people don't want real human interaction with disagreements and taking turns to speak and listen. They want a captive audience to listen to their stories and opinions.
I suspect Mr Langlois could find others in need of company in his senior housing complex, but they would also prefer to have others listen rather than to have to listen themselves.
1
@Greenie
While a real cat won't have many words to say, it's far healthier to have one than to look at an avatar of one.
2
kudos to ms. bowles for a fine overview of a fascinating issue.
the equivalence claimed between "a semi-lifelike thing and a tetrahedron with eyeballs" is not an offhand joke: the human social response to machines is powerful. the late clifford nass documented this in media and software. people name their cars. slot machine science has refined the animated chimes and gurgles that provoke continued play. and, of course, there's facebook and twitter.
of course, it's still a prole human typing in responses for Sox (many probably working remotely, at home). but it won't be long before AI can do that seamlessly and at much less cost for a far greater number of "clients" in fifty-seven different languages.
cost and savings came up several times in the article, appropriately: it costs money to breed consumers, feed them and keep them content. and if a corporation can make you feel loved and loved by the Lord, then you can be sure they will exploit that power for every penny.
13
This cannot be framed as "either-or," use of technology is all good or bad, but a matter of balance. Yes, the Care.Coach provides a helpful service for its clients, and yes, ironically some of the very tech moguls who helped feed the universal addiction to social media and smart phones see the downside of their creation and thus protect "their" kids--while making profits off everyone else's addiction.
We need to be honest about the effects of constant smart phone distraction on human relationships, safety, and navigating life. There needs to be a "correction" at some point. Everywhere I look people are looking down, at screens, rather than other people and the world around them. Worse, the phone-distracted driver is becoming an increasingly dangerous hazard.
I often speculate how people would/will handle a major Internet outage. Will people become depressed without their constant distraction and social media feeds? Or will they rediscover the joy of being free and naturally engaging in authentic human interaction and become more attuned to the beauty of nature?
I enjoy the benefits of technology, which enables us to share our thoughts on this forum, but am increasingly concerned about how it is controlling our lives. With the impending rise of 5-G networks this may only get worse.
Good for "Sox" for providing comfort to this man. However, we need to start controlling the technology and not let the technology control us.
7
While there are limits for people who aren't wealthy (e.g. work-related calls, text, etc.), a lot of the decision to cut down on tech is not dependent on money. I intentionally do not maintain any social accounts beyond that needed for work and this Times account. It's always a bit shocking to people that I don't have a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. account because I'm pretty socially connected. However, all my friends linked to me electronically are all people I know in person and not just digital friends.
Also, as an MD, I am used to being on an electronic tether for work so when I am off, I rarely keep my mobile phone on for calls, messages. I started doing this starting with my pager 15 years ago. I tell everyone I know this habit so they know I am not ignoring them. The exception is if I am headed out for a social event so that people can contact me and I them if I am late, etc. Most people know I am not flaky and once I say I will go to something, I make every effort to keep my word so usually I don't get a lot of call/ texts in between. Also, I make time to be with friends in-person and to be present when I am with them: I don't spend hours texting back and forth, posting on social media, etc.
14
One more thing. There is still a lot of contact people would dearly like to avoid. Like, for example, any time spent in the New York subway system.
7
@Belasco
I lived in Manhattan and then Brooklyn for a total of seven years, and loved the subway. Now I'm a car-commuter in Los Angeles, and I'd trade my freeways for the NYC subway in a heartbeat.
21
Maybe it's the mixed (race, income level) neighborhood, admittedly harboring many creatives and socialists, but I witness happy talking teen/young couples sitting for a coffee (no wifi) or strolling. Lots of teens skateboarding or ion the way to basketball or soccer, no screens. Old people like me on a screen (but always open to conversation, which happens regularly). In my former poorer neighborhood the kids walked a mile from school, no screens. And in a few indie cafes lots of small group conversations, including college students, even at places with wifi. And some millennials hereabouts join a hot-button-neutral evangelical church that is organized in various ways, including into small house study/conversation groups. But yes, there are a lot of lonely people in the US. Good for them if they find some comfort on their screens.
4
This is a very complicated issue. It's also a question of what kind of "human contact" people want. One of the first things a lot of people who have or come into money do is farm out their relationship with their children not to screens but to nannies. Is Silicon Valley examining how that impacts a child's development? Poor people don't have that option.
9
Nannies can be a wonderful effect. As can boarding schools as it concerns ‘farming out’. Both my parents went to boarding school - albeit for different reasons. One was wealth and one was divorce. But, I suspect, the effect on each was an ‘over-socialization’ because they had to get along and conform to institutional discipline and sharing resources etc. with peers from a young age. In my father’s case , there was also a servant in the home. He learned to cook, keep house and care for younger siblings by virtue of this live-in nanny/ maid.
2
"Greetings to Mr. Langlois and Sox in San Francisco from Mr. Ironsides with warm purrs. This morning my tuxedo got sprinkled with snow flakes after taking a tour of the outside, I dashed back to MY castle, and shoved my carer off MY bed. Apparently I am no longer a kitten, but a panther with two sets of white socks and a bib. Now I am reading in MY den before midnight, 'The Cricket in Times Square'.
Having grown up without a phone, TV or radio, but with an abundance of books, I remember when the screen came into the corporate office where I worked, and ignored it, only to realize that it was necessary for speeches that my boss was giving to Washington on the U.S. economy, our city schools, infrastructure and many essential matters, but neither of us have taken to tablets or walking about with cell phones.
It is cheering to know that I am now part of the elite at long last, in an era where humans have a knack for the creation of complexities with all the technological conveniences at hand. Now that's rich.
At school in a classroom of forty-four not so long after WWII, the thought of a phone going off is making this reader laugh. Well, here we are in the 21st century, and there is a sense that life is going to become more challenging for our next generation.
It is obvious that I have succumbed to the computer screen, but the T.V. remains silent. More reading is on the schedule and used editions of books are as good as it gets.
Good night Mr. Langlois and Sox.
8
This article seems about 5 to 10 years too early. It's a bit freaky to think that so many people are glued to their screens. Poor humans, easily manipulated and easily led.
4
In the last few years have gone far and wide to avoid being on the grid for various vacations
Alcova, WY
The Forks, ME
Craig, MT
Each afford me the chance to fish amazing wild rivers and have no cell or internet for a week
6
@alec
Yep. Rich people are paying big bucks to go to "spas" where there is no cell service or internet. I think many rural places in Vermont, which have yet to get cell or anything beyond dial up internet should just re-frame themselves as being a respite from always being connected, start up some inns and market themselves to the wealthy of Silicon Valley looking to "get away from it all". Who knew?
6
@Greenie
You made me laugh! By the way rich people do own second homes in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont for this very reason. You can buy an entire house in rural Vermont for the price of a few dozen luxury weekends in some trendy spot.
1
@alec
3 cheers for Alcova. May it always be off the grid!
So America is finally outsourcing humanity. It was only a matter of time, wasn't it?
149
@trudds
I'm not so sure there are not current aspects of humanity that we wouldn't be better off outsourcing.
4
@Thomas LaFollette hard to disagree, but I honestly believe we can be so much better if we're ready to try.
4
I think this article is conflating two separate issues.
The preference for a screen is not the same as saying human contact is only for the wealthy, because human contact is, frankly, everywhere and is free. It’s like saying that people of limited means have to buy soda because they can’t afford tap water.
Human contact is not a luxury. However, people do spend money to limit their exposure to certain kinds of human interactions and also to increase their chances of accessing higher quality interactions.
That someone would prefer to interact with a screenworld or a bot (over which they can exert complete control, who never makes demands on them because bots don’t have needs) says something about that person and what the alternatives are for their social needs.
24
You think the rich would want less contact with other human-beings, since if this rate of income disparity keeps ratcheting up, one day there will be a one-percenter purge.
13
As a cat lover and someone who understands the pain of loneliness, I wish Mr. Langlois could have a real cat along with Sox, with whom he can interact via speech. A real creature to cuddle and play with would surely brighten his day in a real and special way. Dh.
44
If the rich are staying away from screens then they know they are doing because screens cannot replace human interaction as computers lack any intelligence. Computers certainly are useful but they are limited and many people are failing to acknowledge these limitations. Wishing computers could do more is not going to make it happen. The rich seem to grasp that and are making wise choices, at least according to this article. I don't think avoiding screens is a status symbol. It just makes common sense.
5
I'm old enough to remember when people could pick up their telephones (usually rotary type) to ask the operator what time it was. I remember kids sometimes asking other questions . When computers first hit us I jokingly used to comment that they were just a fad and I was waiting until the fad passed. Ha!
Obviously I succumbed to the computer fad but I have held back from the smartphone practice. I have a simple flip phone which I keep in my car for emergency use only. I don't do Facebook or other social media so I am pleased to see that at least part of my prediction is coming true.
I do despair at the lack of humans who are in customer care. A friend of mine tried for weeks to speak to a human about an overcharge from DropBox, only to get phone trees. He tried all of the options, never to succeed in reaching a human. so he dropped the question and let DropBox keep the money.
I have noticed the number of very poorly dressed children sitting in lines for free food, clutching their smart phones. I've also noticed the numbers of obese people shopping at Wal-Mart whose carts are filled with cheap, filler, food. It's located on the south side of town where the rents are cheaper. . On the north side, in the plush area is the lavish Farmers' Market, where gorgeous fresh healthy food is sold at astronomical high prices. Whole Foods is near by. One sees bikes parked in both lots.
Maybe in time things will balance out? One can hope.
21
From gentrification of the block to gentrification of the 'worth less then $2,000' human experiences. It really sox!
I don't call that progress. I call that tyranny. The guy who didn't commit suicide may or may not agree.
If ever a doctor on a tablet has the ultimate arrogance to tell me i'm done, i'll find the strength to destroy it.
Great article Nellie Bowles.
26
People dream. People have dreamed for a very long time. A great many people today believe that their dreams offer a portal to further understanding of themselves, of the world, of a single particular event. There are even people who believe that 'god' speaks to them in their sleeping or waking dreams and that 'god' speaking to them entitles them to dictate to others the demands 'god' has made.
I talk to my pets, my plants, to the air or god if you would rather. I had an imaginary friend when I was a young pre-school child, and guess what, I have often turned to that same pre-school friend during the most lonely and heartbreaking times of my life, like when my sister committed suicide, when my Dad died, when my Mom died. More so, I was comforted by someone who I imagined but did not exist, was there. I fully understand why.
I learned to comfort myself when I was very young. I remember being in a crib, standing, holding a bottle by my teeth, with a very wet and cold diaper. I remember my mother passing by the open door, looking at me, and leaving. I remember throwing the bottle at her passing image. I remember being spanked and having the door closed on me. I am 69 years old now and that memory, along with the pickle she gave me at 16 months to test if I had the mumps. I've not been a fan of pickles since because I remember.
Actually life is a series of images, actions, reactions, and recitations. Life is a vast series of screenies. There's little difference.
6
Wonderful insights.
The screen, digital world is safe, instant and dependable.
The real, analog world is risky, slow and undependable.
I think we need to mix it up, between digital and real world,
for sanity and balance.
Simply slowing down each day, to rest, mediate, or walk helps me,
to avoid screen addiction... Much thanks
10
A closely related problem is getting to talk to a human when you call almost any non-tiny business. It wouldn't be so bad if getting to talk to a human was an easily-available option, but it rarely is. In fact, these systems are set up to make that as hard as possible. Just pressing 0 used to do the trick, but no longer.
This wouldn't be so bad if the systems were really, really clever. But they aren't. If your query is at all nonstandard, it won't get answered by the automated system.
For instance, when you call a credit card company or a bank, they insist on giving you information on your balance, payments, etc. That might actually be what you want half the time. But for the other half it's very frustrating to be bombarded by questions you weren't asking.
61
It is highly irksome to see this contributor compare the choice to eat organic food to owning a $15,000 handbag!
Organic farming should be incentivized so that chemical-free produce is available to all at a reasonable price. NO ONE should be forced to risk exposure to herbicide-related lymphoma.
49
Organic isn't chemical free, and often uses insecticides that are more dangerous than the alternatives. The organic industry is a scam that - as I've often heard said - achieves the miracle of feeding dozens from land that could feed hundreds. Responsible farming is important, but relying on the myth of organic farming won't produce enough to feed the world now, much less in the future. It's indeed a luxury of the privileged. A needless luxury.
4
@Topher S
Organic farming, done right, isn't a scam. It can indeed feed the world. I was an organic farmer for many years and I engaged in responsible practices. I sure didn't use "insecticides that are more dangerous than the alternatives"; no clue what you are referring to here. It sounds to me like you're getting your info from some web site with a bone to pick against organic; surely not from having any first-hand experience.
24
Yes we should all embrace Monsanto over Mother Nature. What a great idea!
3
We are in danger of allowing “screen” reality to replace actual reality. I recently had my annual performance evaluation, and the only less-than-superior mark I received concerned how quickly I responded to emails from my direct supervisor and the agency head. Both of these individuals work in offices twenty feet from mine, but I can’t remember the last time either one came to my office to ask me a question in person. They send emails instead, which then compete with the dozens of others I receive every day for my attention. It would not cost a cent to skip the email and resort to personal interaction. It would only require disengaging, momentarily, from the inanimate but all-too-real boss.
128
Emails are time stamped and unambiguous.
2
Quality human contact and services has always been the prerogative of the economically or socially privileged, and will remain so. For the rest of us (particularly the introverted), a lot of human encounters can be unrewarding, if not actively unpleasant or unsafe. Technological mediation has removed the friction caused by low-quality everyday human encounters. It has also democratized access to communication and media for many.
20
Like breastfeeding, bicycling to work, or cooking at home, the wealthy - who used to look down on these activities at various times in modern history - have reclaimed them as stylish. Those with fewer resources or juggling home and work responsibilities on a limited salary are left with fast food and driving and the health consequences.
38
I'm retired and financially secure. I have the luxury of living alone with no one to argue with. I do not have a smartphone, just a flip phone. I have great internet access and great TV access. I also have a great beach to walk on.
I loved my teenage girlfriend and still sometimes think of her.
32
@the shadow
and your point?
1
What's major and missing are showing valid stats and methodology of how many "wealthy" people are adhering to not using a mobile screen ...20%, 25% ….nada was answered on this topic.
Seems near guaranteed poor to especially the rich, percentage wise, will continue to create havoc in hormone growth (e.g. brains, dopamaine, serotonin, etc.) due to the EMF's emitted from mobile phones, especially on young, still growing minds! Also more anxiety ridden kids near age of 14 which extends to the "well off" kids, also those that can't look people straight in the eyes for 10 seconds or longer. .
8
What a thought-provoking article! But this paragraph stopped me:
“The wealthy can afford to opt out of having their data and their attention sold as a product. The poor and middle class don’t have the same kind of resources to make that happen.”
I’m not sure that’s true. What resources are required to stay off social media, for instance? And as for the wealthy, how exactly do they opt out, and what are they spending to do so?
The premise is intriguing, but that assertion, in particular, needs more data to support it.
47
@Anthony Marks Maybe one example is schools and kids. The article said some public schools require students to be online and use screens, while swanky private schools are going "natural" and screenless. The 68 year old man being looked after by his artificial cat friend is one a low income program that provided the screen caregiver for free, whereas, if you have money, you can hire a real person to look after you. But yes, it would be very interesting to see this more fleshed out. It was very interesting though!
28
@Anthony Marks
Totally agree. Except for a few specialized cases (like required school screen time, which is probably the rare exception) screen time is an option, same as drinking soda or eating potato chips. It is certainly tempting and maybe something that the poor do more than the rich, but it is not a requirement for living and not something that takes "resources" to avoid -- other than a desire to avoid it and the decision to follow through on that desire.
7
@Anthony Marks
It's pretty simple. I pay for my email. It costs a few bucks a month. As a result, I have private email, that's not being read harvested, analyzed, and stored by hundreds of different companies. Poor people either can't or won't pay for email, and as a result, all of their email is very much not private.
3
Why is being tanned so desirable? Why is being thin? They both convey that you are not stuck sitting in a cubicle, rather, you can afford to be out in the sun, playing—even if your tan and waistline didn’t come from leisure activities. Not long ago, having fair skin and a zaftig figure were desirable as they conveyed that you were not out working in the fields.
Similarly, socialization via the Internet also connotes not being financially free to do whatever one wants. When telemedicine is cheaper than a visit to the Doctor’s, both in terms of money and time, when visiting with friends via Facebook means that you don’t have to afford a car to travel, when cruising through Amazon is the only way to shop, because you’re working 60 hours a week, just to make ends meet, doing so carries the potential to be a class signifier—and not of the upper-class—just as Ms. Bowles writes.
The painful irony in all of this is that most of us ache to associate ourselves with the latest technologies: just look at the lines outside of the local Apple store when the next iPhone is released. We spend what little money that we have trying to say to the rest of the world “see, I have arrived, I have the latest vehicle for the information super highway.” Yet, in reality, that effort only signifies that we’re stuck slogging along in that digital commute, with everyone else.
101
This doesn't resonate with my experience. I am currently not working and on a tiny budget while I sort out some health issues. I recently moved and have found a great community of people at the daily AA meeting I attend and at the exercise classes at my cheap gym. With my friends I do cheap activities like dog walks and working on our resumes at a cafe.
147
This is chilling and true in ways the writer did not consider. Hospitals boast of "iPad" interpreters when in person interpreter would do a better job. And inmates have their court hearings by video to save the time and expense of trips to the courthouse.
8
Nice article.
How strange that social media was initially promoted as a means of staying in contact but that not many people actually use it for that purpose anymore. FB allows you to contact many people whom, were it not for that, you might have trouble contacting. Yet the ability to instantly contact someone seems to make a lot uncomfortable and as a result most people use it sparingly if at all. It's almost seen as uncool now to reach out to somebody who you haven't seen in a long time.
6
Sorry to rain on this particular Silicon Valley parade, but it seems to me that a better alternative is to provide a cat adoption program. Friends of mine have an "Alexa" and I find it a truly creepy thing.
334
@Ellen
Excellent point! My Mom lost my Dad 5 years ago. While she lives in a socially active senior apartment complex, getting a cat 3 or so years ago has done wonders for her.
37
@Ellen
I am enjoying reading your comment with one of my two cats curled up, purring, with me. This is bliss. There is no gadget possible that can do as much for people as animals. Not even the most tech-savvy mind couldn’t think of what animals understand intuitively about us.
Thanks for what you wrote.
45
@Ellen While that might sound like the best thing to do, the reality is many elderly or disabled people don't have the money or ability to care for a pet. Also, some worry what will happen if they get sick(er) or pass away. There have been studies done on the Sony Aibo - a responsive, robotic dog -- showing it does improve health and mood in the elderly. However, the program is somewhat in limbo intermittently.
17
Why does he not have a real cat? From my own experience I can say that they are as good or better than human company.
Ok, so the rich can pay for people. But the attention of your friends is supposed to be free. I don't see how it's the fault of Silicon Valley or the rich that people don't have friends?
The fact is, getting old and frail was never a walk in the park. In the past more people were forced to care for their elders until the end, and that is the only thing that really changed.
15
@GS why not a reall cat? really? most real cats are not going to be talking to one - most are not likely going to be friendly at all hours of the day - you might get some time - but cats are often aloof. and taking care of the cat is ofter hard on the differently abled.
14
@Paul
You've never had a cat I suppose. My first cat was a Siamese and she talked all day especially when I arrived home. She usually followed me around the house and often was on my lap when I sat down. My second is also a Siamese and is almost always with me wherever I am at home. I can't image a life without this joy.
4
Humans are social animals.
It's how we evolved. Without the company of others, we rapidly lose our bearings; it's no wonder that solitary confinement is the ultimate torture punishment.
But, apparently, it may not matter much with whom we are social. We form bonds with other humans, with animals, and with inanimate objects--the only necessary commonality is that they be capable of communicating and responding to us in a recognizable fashion.
I have joked before in these comments about how the sexbots are coming, and sooner than we think, but in actuality I expect most of us to have AI inspired companions of all sorts in the near future which could pass the Turing test. I'm not sure that this is ultimately a good thing, but certainly there's enough loneliness and anomie out there now for an argument advocating their proliferation to be taken seriously.
12
Mr. Langlois would perhaps do well investigating having a real cat as a companion. There are so many of these delightful little creatures that need a caring home.
204
@Artis Maybe his apartment doesn't allow pets? Or he can't pay vet bills?
39
@Artis Animals are expensive to take care of properly. An approximate cost for care for cat is ~$100/month and a dog ~$200/month. There are many physical things to do to take care of an animal including carrying food, pouring food, opening food, bending down to set the dish on the floor, and much more. Additionally, there needs to be enough space for an animal to live, and as previously mentioned, an allowance to have pets from the management. So, there are many barriers to properly care for a pet.
58
@Artis
"To qualify for Element Care, a nonprofit health care program for older adults that brought him Sox, a patient’s countable assets must not be greater than $2,000. "
As Mr. Langlois's assets are $2,000 or less, it seems unlikely that he has the means to support a cat, sadly.
23
I’m not sure what world the writer is living in, but there are plenty of people in my area who still interact face to face.
51
"All of this has led to a curious new reality: Human contact is becoming a luxury good."
It is not curious. It was the ultimate goal of people like Bill Gates and, especially, Steve Jobs, who wanted everyone sitting in their own cubicles and communicating with each other totally with their soft ware.
“If you’re truly at the top of the hierarchy, you don’t have to answer to anyone. They have to answer to you.”
The person at the top is called "the boss" and has always had people answer to him or her. This has nothing to do with technology.
I did find, however, that it was wise for me to have lied to my employer when they wanted to know everyone's personal cell phone number. I said I did not own a cell phone.
I've lost track of the number of times my co-workers were called at 7AM on a Saturday morning because an incompetent manager failed to do HIS job.
65
It’s not so much the well-off are less connected than the poor, but that they have the option of disconnecting when they want to. Even the Silicon Valley elite jumping on the “back to real life” bandwagon aren’t forgoing the ability to Google information altogether. That would put them at an information deficit (and thus a power deficit) compared to everyone else, which isn’t going to happen.
Power isn’t the ability to use something, whether it’s technology or anything else. It’s the ability to choose whether you want to use something or not... And be fine either way.
78
@Scott
'It’s not so much the well-off are less connected than the poor'... Forgive me for saying this, but it look like you haven't met than many poor people in your life. Poor people are socially isolated because they cannot afford extra costs for public transportation, entertainment costs such as movie tickets or even a coffeeshop break, or warm clothes to go out in winter. They can't have guests either because their furniture is falling apart, their cheap, monotonous diet is not fit for a guest, in winter there is no money for fuel, or in summer for an AC unit. Some poor people who work a job and a half to make ends meet, have no leisure time, and function in a haze of exhaustion. As they live depressing and illness-generating lives, the poor are often ill and depressed, which also impacts their ability to socialize.
88
My 17-year-old niece is living us while she attempts to finish high school because her parents are non-functional.
She spend up to 10 hours per day texting because she has NO real friends ("friend" = someone you actually spend time with and share interests; she goes out with am actual human being about once a month).
She is in for a rude awakening when she goes to college next year.
36
@Jay David
Have you tried to help her make friends? Encouraged her?
Sounds like it would be worthwhile to reason with her kindly before the rude awakening.
7
@Jay David
Why have you assumed that your niece spends 10 hours a day text because she has "NO real friends." ?
Your niece is spending her time texting because that is what her friends and many or most teenagers do these day !
My nephew has plenty of friends. He told me that his friends don't want to come over to his house to play. They want to sit in their houses and play video games with him from the comfort of their homes.
He wants to play basketball with his friends, and to engage in other forms of interaction that involve real time contact. He can't pry a single other child away from a screen . This is a child who HAS friends.
When his friends came over, they wanted to sit next to him on the couch and play video games against him.
The tone of your comment suggests that you resent having your niece in your house, aren't interested in engaging with her, and believe she is in for a "rude awakening."
Given that she has non-functional parents, and an uncle who had judged her as having no friends, and believes she is in for a rude awakening, I'd say that she has had the rude awakening you believe she will have when she goes away to college.
My guess is that college will be a haven for her, where she will blossom .She won't be with her non-functional parents, or with an uncle who doesn't think much of her.
6
This article feels heartbreaking, but at the same time, I’m not surprised by it. When people need to maintain a second job, and when a family can’t make it on any less than two incomes, it means that there’s just less time in the day to attend the Wednesday night dinner at church, or to have coffee with the other stay at home moms in the neighborhood. It’s no wonder that we turn to screens, from television to the cell phones in our pocket, for anything resembling social interaction.
71
Smart phones are designed to make people stupider and lazier and, therefore, easier to manipulate.
Social media is designed to undermine shared democratic values and replace them with the values of the tribe (think Afghanistan).
Just like legal and illegal drug addiction, it's all about money, the one true God.
1
So we have national studies on screen time, but what about the Waldorf Schools that are the alternative to the Silicon Valley folks? What's the evidence there?
9
@Chris.the.Monk
Fair question, but maybe life before 2000?