... or 27 years of internet (counting as of 1990, when Tim Berners-Lee created the first website).
A week ago a friend sent me this article which claims that technology is useful for solving problems of "matter, energy, space or time" but not "human problems of the mind". It goes on to say that technology does not actually connect people but is merely a medium through which people communicate.
I wasn't going to write about this, but for my latest Chinese homework assignment, my teacher asked me to write a paragraph on "what if there were no internet". This was a very frustrating assignment because my vocabulary is nowhere near good enough to express concepts such as "loneliness", "human interaction", "humblebrag", "narcissism" &c. (The only word in this list I know knew how to say in Chinese is "&c" (I have since learnt "loneliness").) So I'm writing this to vent the built up frustration (some people go running for this purpose (i.e. for the purpose of venting frustration in general, not frustration that results of an inability to express oneself in a foreign language in particular); I hate running. I once trained to run for a race, and hated every minute of it. Hollywood has since tricked me into trying it a few more times, and every single time, five minutes in, I start thinking how much happier I'd be just walking. Which is what I end up doing - but then I think how much happier I'd be walking in normal clothes rather than a decade-old sleeveless t-shirt I got for a pub crawl back at York).
Back to the matter at hand: the author of the aforementioned article touches on an interesting (yet by no means original) point when he says that platforms like facebook actually exacerbate a need for connection instead of sating it; but, as I told my friend who sent me the article, I found the author's arguments shallow and pedantic. They (the author's arguments) are flawed from the get-go, because he (the author) cavalierly asserts that technology does not connect people, without explaining what he means by the term. Since he acknowledges that technology makes communication easier, he clearly doesn't use "connect" in its standard definition, which is to bring into contact.
But for all but the most exotic and abnormal definitions of the word, connection surely relies on, or at least is enabled by, communication. If technology therefore enables the latter, it also enables the former. It doesn't matter whether technology directly forms "connections" between humans (and in fact, it'd be weird if it (technology) or anything else for that matter instantly formed deep bonds between people (and I for one have always found facebook's "you are now friends with..." absurd: what, was my friendship's status with that person unconfirmed, and required fb's stamp of approval to become official?))
Unless of course there are qualitatively different forms of communication, some conductive towards building bonds, some not. The question then becomes, which kind of communication does technology foster? There are two ways to answer this question. The first is theoretical: we can try to determine what are the characteristics of the former kind of communication and see whether technologically-enabled communication posses them. Or we can answer the question empirically by asking people whether they feel more connected to others through their use of technology. This second approach is way easier. Now, the [work required to answer this question] to [my interest in getting an actual answer] ratio is very high in this case (as indeed it is in most cases because I'm lazy), but anecdotal evidence re the number of persons who form friendships through their interaction in IRC/forums (fora? too pretentious?)/Wikipedia/World of Warcraft/9gag/other platforms and who I believe would report having formed solid connections with people they've never even met in real life (e.g. see here for an example of a man who left his real life wife to marry his Second Life fling whom he'd never actually met in person) suggests that technology does in fact help foster deep bonds between people.
But because thinking things through is both more fun and less taxing than actually doing work (which is, I suppose, why there are so many armchair revolutionaries/caviar leftists/champagne socialists), let's try our hand at the first approach: let's try and imagine what communication that helps form profound bonds between people looks like (undetermined: the reason I sometimes use the plural pronoun and sometimes the singular one in my blog posts). Note here that I base the following on absolutely nothing empirical/scientific.
Working backwards, I would define a meaningful connection between two persons as a relationship characterised by mutual respect, affection and understanding. What we need to do now is understand how these feelings develop, and what sort of communication would foster their development; all we need to do then is make an argument as to whether technologically-enabled communication is the sort of communication that does so.
Mutual respect arises (I will avoid inserting "I believe"s and "I think"s - discount the matter-of-fact tone appropriately, as if I had (inserted these disclaimers of subjective opinion)) in two cases: a) when people share a value system and b) when each side believes the other side would stand up for their value system (even if this a non-shared system) even in adverse circumstances. For example, a lot of liberals strongly disagree with many of John McCain's positions and values; yet it is impossible not to respect a man who refused early release from a Vietcong prison where he was being tortured because of his belief in a military Code that specified POWs should be released in the order they were captured.
(To anticipate an objection here: some readers may suggest that respect also arises in cases of "success" regardless of values; I dispute that. Take a hypothetical example: some people think Travis Kalanic, Uber's CEO, deserves respect for his success even though he is, by all appearances, not a very nice person. But I think the people who would argue this are just balancing his ruthlessness with other values, such as ambition and drive, in their worldview; so values do come into play. You would never respect someone if they literally have no values in common with you, regardless of their success (except see (b) above).)
Affection mainly arises through sharing positive experiences. Understanding between two people develops through each one getting to know the other - the more intimate and personal the information shared between two people, the stronger the understanding (and probably the affection) between them.
So for two people to form a meaningful bond they need to spend a lot of (good) time together, get to know each other's principles and (honestly) share personal information with each other. I would argue that technologically-enabled communication meets these criteria. As you probably know, there are tens (if not hundreds or even thousands) of flourishing online communities of people who spend the majority of their time on their screens. There are people who identify with their online avatars to the extent of holding online funerals for people who die in real life (and jerks who stage raids on said funeral processions); people who pretend to be citizens or rules of digital micro-nations (and who take micro-nation politics seriously enough to spend real-life years infiltrating each others' nations to wreak havoc); people who create online corporations that pretty much work like real-life ones; and even nations that have created virtual embassies.
Now all these people certainly spend enough time with each other to develop feelings of affection - in fact, I guarantee that there are people who feel more affectionate towards friends they've made online and that they've never actually met than towards people they know in real life. It's also easy to argue that people will cluster together with others who share their values - given that online you have absolute freedom of choice with regards to whom you hang out with, it is more than likely that people will choose to associate with those who share their worldview.
The only debatable aspect is the genuine understanding and knowing between people. Some will argue that online communication is more likely to be dishonest: after all, OKCupid has shown that people online lie about how tall they are, how much money they make or even their sexuality. And we all know people whose online persona is more glamorous, more care-fee, more happy than they are in real life (I will revisit this point further down).
Yet I would argue that in some cases people are more honest online than they are in person. Anonymity (and temporal limitations) means that you can say whatever you like without a group of people forming a circle, pointing their fingers and laughing at you; the fact that you can seek new communities and groups of people at a click of a button means you can shed all your defenses, you can risk being vulnerable - and if people accept you in this state, you will feel closer to them; if not, you will just try your luck with another group. I am sure there are online communities of people whose members know more about each other than you (the reader) know about your close friends (spend 10 minutes on bash.org and you'll see how forthcoming people can be). One counter-argument here is that in many cases, people in such communities do not even know each other's real names; but without wishing to get too philosophical here, I'd say, why does that matter? If these people project their most raw, real personality online, and each one gets to know each other's character, don't these people form real bonds?
So I think there is a solid case to be made that technology does enable the kind of communication that builds genuine relationships. A good relationship is one that helps people escape their feeling lonely; and I genuinely believe there are thousands of people who feel less lonely because of their online interactions (consider also the myriads of blogs available: I can only think of two reasons for a person to publish their writing: a) they are incredibly arrogant and think what they have to say has 1) never been said before or 2) never been said as well as they can say it; and b) they are trying to connect with other people by sharing their thoughts (this category includes those who hope people reading their writing will satisfy their vanity). I'll leave it to the reader to guess to which category I belong, but surely a huge number of blogs exists for reason b, and (I hope) some of these blogs really do help their authors feel heard and understood).
But all this said, I do agree with the article's author that there is also a case to be made that technology exacerbates loneliness rather than combating it. This happens when people seek to misrepresent themselves. I do not need to expand too much on this point because it has been captured brilliantly by Black Mirror and Wait But Why; briefly, my own take is this: people get caught in a vicious loop of making themselves appear better looking/more interesting/fun/happy online than they are in real life. But then of course they feel they have to keep up with this image, so they spend more and more time curating their online profile than experiencing the things they are so meticulously documenting. I swear there are people visiting museums or other sights and only see the works of art or monuments or whatever it is they are looking at through their screens; in which case, what's the point of visiting the place in person? The point of course is that you then get to post the picture online so all your friends know what an exciting life you live. But the more you do this, the more lonely you feel, because you know that all these people who see your profile do not see the real you; do not see your sadness or your problems or your insecurities; they don't know you. So you feel more alone than you would if you didn't have this brilliantly maintained profile. Also, there is this other thing: you "like" other people's photos, not because you genuinely like them (I mean, honestly: does anyone, anyone, feel a genuine, positive emotion at seeing another person's dinner?) but because you expect reciprocity; and then whenever someone "likes" your stuff, you have this nagging thought at the back of your head: do they really like it, or is it just part of the game between people? (On the matter of reciprocity: its most shameless manifestation is on LinkedIn, where people endorse each others' skills even if they have never worked together. I swear I had something like 30 people to whom I hadn't spoken in years, with whom I had never worked in the same company, much less in the same team, who had endorsed me for "financial analysis" or "strategy"; worse, they would endorse one of my skills one day, then another a few days later - like they were thinking "maybe if I endorse him for a sufficiently high number of skills, he'll endorse me back; I just haven't reached that number yet". I have since disabled endorsements because vain though I am, being endorsed by people who have precisely 0 knowledge of my ability is almost sickening; what this behaviour says about the state of the world is too depressing to fully articulate.)
So in conclusion: technology can be both a cause of and an antidote to loneliness. Which one it is is entirely up to us, the users. If we use technology to talk with people we wouldn't be able to otherwise, if we use it to connect with strangers by being open and honest, we will make the best of it. If we use it to feed our vanity, if we use it as escapism by building an online self that projects our best qualities but brushes the worst under the carpet, we will feel alone. Technology: use with care.
Back to the matter at hand: the author of the aforementioned article touches on an interesting (yet by no means original) point when he says that platforms like facebook actually exacerbate a need for connection instead of sating it; but, as I told my friend who sent me the article, I found the author's arguments shallow and pedantic. They (the author's arguments) are flawed from the get-go, because he (the author) cavalierly asserts that technology does not connect people, without explaining what he means by the term. Since he acknowledges that technology makes communication easier, he clearly doesn't use "connect" in its standard definition, which is to bring into contact.
But for all but the most exotic and abnormal definitions of the word, connection surely relies on, or at least is enabled by, communication. If technology therefore enables the latter, it also enables the former. It doesn't matter whether technology directly forms "connections" between humans (and in fact, it'd be weird if it (technology) or anything else for that matter instantly formed deep bonds between people (and I for one have always found facebook's "you are now friends with..." absurd: what, was my friendship's status with that person unconfirmed, and required fb's stamp of approval to become official?))
Unless of course there are qualitatively different forms of communication, some conductive towards building bonds, some not. The question then becomes, which kind of communication does technology foster? There are two ways to answer this question. The first is theoretical: we can try to determine what are the characteristics of the former kind of communication and see whether technologically-enabled communication posses them. Or we can answer the question empirically by asking people whether they feel more connected to others through their use of technology. This second approach is way easier. Now, the [work required to answer this question] to [my interest in getting an actual answer] ratio is very high in this case (as indeed it is in most cases because I'm lazy), but anecdotal evidence re the number of persons who form friendships through their interaction in IRC/forums (fora? too pretentious?)/Wikipedia/World of Warcraft/9gag/other platforms and who I believe would report having formed solid connections with people they've never even met in real life (e.g. see here for an example of a man who left his real life wife to marry his Second Life fling whom he'd never actually met in person) suggests that technology does in fact help foster deep bonds between people.
But because thinking things through is both more fun and less taxing than actually doing work (which is, I suppose, why there are so many armchair revolutionaries/caviar leftists/champagne socialists), let's try our hand at the first approach: let's try and imagine what communication that helps form profound bonds between people looks like (undetermined: the reason I sometimes use the plural pronoun and sometimes the singular one in my blog posts). Note here that I base the following on absolutely nothing empirical/scientific.
Working backwards, I would define a meaningful connection between two persons as a relationship characterised by mutual respect, affection and understanding. What we need to do now is understand how these feelings develop, and what sort of communication would foster their development; all we need to do then is make an argument as to whether technologically-enabled communication is the sort of communication that does so.
Mutual respect arises (I will avoid inserting "I believe"s and "I think"s - discount the matter-of-fact tone appropriately, as if I had (inserted these disclaimers of subjective opinion)) in two cases: a) when people share a value system and b) when each side believes the other side would stand up for their value system (even if this a non-shared system) even in adverse circumstances. For example, a lot of liberals strongly disagree with many of John McCain's positions and values; yet it is impossible not to respect a man who refused early release from a Vietcong prison where he was being tortured because of his belief in a military Code that specified POWs should be released in the order they were captured.
(To anticipate an objection here: some readers may suggest that respect also arises in cases of "success" regardless of values; I dispute that. Take a hypothetical example: some people think Travis Kalanic, Uber's CEO, deserves respect for his success even though he is, by all appearances, not a very nice person. But I think the people who would argue this are just balancing his ruthlessness with other values, such as ambition and drive, in their worldview; so values do come into play. You would never respect someone if they literally have no values in common with you, regardless of their success (except see (b) above).)
Affection mainly arises through sharing positive experiences. Understanding between two people develops through each one getting to know the other - the more intimate and personal the information shared between two people, the stronger the understanding (and probably the affection) between them.
So for two people to form a meaningful bond they need to spend a lot of (good) time together, get to know each other's principles and (honestly) share personal information with each other. I would argue that technologically-enabled communication meets these criteria. As you probably know, there are tens (if not hundreds or even thousands) of flourishing online communities of people who spend the majority of their time on their screens. There are people who identify with their online avatars to the extent of holding online funerals for people who die in real life (and jerks who stage raids on said funeral processions); people who pretend to be citizens or rules of digital micro-nations (and who take micro-nation politics seriously enough to spend real-life years infiltrating each others' nations to wreak havoc); people who create online corporations that pretty much work like real-life ones; and even nations that have created virtual embassies.
Now all these people certainly spend enough time with each other to develop feelings of affection - in fact, I guarantee that there are people who feel more affectionate towards friends they've made online and that they've never actually met than towards people they know in real life. It's also easy to argue that people will cluster together with others who share their values - given that online you have absolute freedom of choice with regards to whom you hang out with, it is more than likely that people will choose to associate with those who share their worldview.
The only debatable aspect is the genuine understanding and knowing between people. Some will argue that online communication is more likely to be dishonest: after all, OKCupid has shown that people online lie about how tall they are, how much money they make or even their sexuality. And we all know people whose online persona is more glamorous, more care-fee, more happy than they are in real life (I will revisit this point further down).
Yet I would argue that in some cases people are more honest online than they are in person. Anonymity (and temporal limitations) means that you can say whatever you like without a group of people forming a circle, pointing their fingers and laughing at you; the fact that you can seek new communities and groups of people at a click of a button means you can shed all your defenses, you can risk being vulnerable - and if people accept you in this state, you will feel closer to them; if not, you will just try your luck with another group. I am sure there are online communities of people whose members know more about each other than you (the reader) know about your close friends (spend 10 minutes on bash.org and you'll see how forthcoming people can be). One counter-argument here is that in many cases, people in such communities do not even know each other's real names; but without wishing to get too philosophical here, I'd say, why does that matter? If these people project their most raw, real personality online, and each one gets to know each other's character, don't these people form real bonds?
So I think there is a solid case to be made that technology does enable the kind of communication that builds genuine relationships. A good relationship is one that helps people escape their feeling lonely; and I genuinely believe there are thousands of people who feel less lonely because of their online interactions (consider also the myriads of blogs available: I can only think of two reasons for a person to publish their writing: a) they are incredibly arrogant and think what they have to say has 1) never been said before or 2) never been said as well as they can say it; and b) they are trying to connect with other people by sharing their thoughts (this category includes those who hope people reading their writing will satisfy their vanity). I'll leave it to the reader to guess to which category I belong, but surely a huge number of blogs exists for reason b, and (I hope) some of these blogs really do help their authors feel heard and understood).
But all this said, I do agree with the article's author that there is also a case to be made that technology exacerbates loneliness rather than combating it. This happens when people seek to misrepresent themselves. I do not need to expand too much on this point because it has been captured brilliantly by Black Mirror and Wait But Why; briefly, my own take is this: people get caught in a vicious loop of making themselves appear better looking/more interesting/fun/happy online than they are in real life. But then of course they feel they have to keep up with this image, so they spend more and more time curating their online profile than experiencing the things they are so meticulously documenting. I swear there are people visiting museums or other sights and only see the works of art or monuments or whatever it is they are looking at through their screens; in which case, what's the point of visiting the place in person? The point of course is that you then get to post the picture online so all your friends know what an exciting life you live. But the more you do this, the more lonely you feel, because you know that all these people who see your profile do not see the real you; do not see your sadness or your problems or your insecurities; they don't know you. So you feel more alone than you would if you didn't have this brilliantly maintained profile. Also, there is this other thing: you "like" other people's photos, not because you genuinely like them (I mean, honestly: does anyone, anyone, feel a genuine, positive emotion at seeing another person's dinner?) but because you expect reciprocity; and then whenever someone "likes" your stuff, you have this nagging thought at the back of your head: do they really like it, or is it just part of the game between people? (On the matter of reciprocity: its most shameless manifestation is on LinkedIn, where people endorse each others' skills even if they have never worked together. I swear I had something like 30 people to whom I hadn't spoken in years, with whom I had never worked in the same company, much less in the same team, who had endorsed me for "financial analysis" or "strategy"; worse, they would endorse one of my skills one day, then another a few days later - like they were thinking "maybe if I endorse him for a sufficiently high number of skills, he'll endorse me back; I just haven't reached that number yet". I have since disabled endorsements because vain though I am, being endorsed by people who have precisely 0 knowledge of my ability is almost sickening; what this behaviour says about the state of the world is too depressing to fully articulate.)
So in conclusion: technology can be both a cause of and an antidote to loneliness. Which one it is is entirely up to us, the users. If we use technology to talk with people we wouldn't be able to otherwise, if we use it to connect with strangers by being open and honest, we will make the best of it. If we use it to feed our vanity, if we use it as escapism by building an online self that projects our best qualities but brushes the worst under the carpet, we will feel alone. Technology: use with care.
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