Venting technology and looking for connections that aren't there

[last.hummingbird]

Sometimes I honestly really wish social media and all the technology we have now wasn't a thing. For all the privileges its granted society its also caused an equal amount in stress. It's such a dissonant experience especially now that I'm isolated, struggling with ideation and in need of genuine connection, wanting to talk to another human being in person, and yet half the time they are mostly preoccupied with their phone or with TV.

Me wanting to talk to you is me trying to see you see me. We all want to be acknowledged and seen. I want to be seen by family but a lot of the time they are coping in the same ways that I am at this point. I'm spending more time with family than ever being home so often, and try talking to them but half of the time they are frequently on their phones, honestly to a degree that isn't healthy. I want to connect in more healthy ways with my siblings, I try to show them that I care, but they're often more interested in being on the phone than interacting with me. No one's doing it out of malice but everyone does it to escape, out of habit.

It feels so damn sad and paradoxical to live in this hyperconnected society, at such an advanced stage in human civilization and simultaneously have to deal with this level of dysfunction and isolation. It makes me wish I could've chosen a different time to be born in. I wish so badly that things were different.

 

[unhappilyundead]

absolutely, I think social media has totally isolated and separated people further than before. How is it we're so lonely with these super communication computers in our pockets? I feel like it's like pulling teeth just to ask people to connect. Comes with the territory I guess. I wish I was born sometime else too; really feels like humanity is coming to a close.

 

[heywey]

Both social and media technologies -- god forbid their unholy combination -- peaked around the age of telegraphs and newspapers, I think. I grew up in peak post-dotcom techno-optimism, where social media was going to end wars and bring us all together as one big global family, and I went into a career in tech partly because of those ideas, so the disillusionment over the past 5-10 years has been rough.

It feels so damn sad and paradoxical to live in this hyperconnected society, at such an advanced stage in human civilization and simultaneously have to deal with this level of dysfunction and isolation.

This sums it up perfectly. Being able to type something sitting here and have it whisked away to the far reaches of the Earth still feels magical in some way, but it's put a distance between everyone, even someone sitting right next to you. The thing is, nothing matters when it's put next to every other thing happening at all times. Local news and events are inherently less big and exciting than the biggest things happening on Earth. The time you spend listening to a song or reading a book you like could be spent finding a new, better one, which is guaranteed to be out there somewhere. The people in your life don't feel as special when there are millions of others just a few taps or clicks away.

The problem though, as I see it, isn't inherent to the technology so much as how we've used it. We've used it to optimize the wrong things; not as a way to facilitate real connections, but to replace, automate and commodify them. The thing that kills me is that it doesn't need to be this way -- technology could be optimized for bringing people together, improving people's lives, but it just isn't.

There's this book called Farewell to the Working Class by Andre Gorz that talks about how economic incentives have become divorced from benefit to society, and how past a certain level of industry it becomes a sort of self-perpetuating thing where the work people do is as unimportant as the things produced. It's like the tech industry took it as a blueprint and has been speedrunning that process, making us all part of this great machine that eats our time and connection and fulfillment in order to spit out synthetic salves to our lack of time and connection and fulfillment, and there's nobody to say "wait stop that's enough".

I think it's especially rough with communication technology because, counterintuitively, more != better, so even people with altruistic goals contribute to making things worse. I think if we ever reach a place where social and/or media technology actually does more benefit than harm, it'll look a lot more like telegraphs and newspapers, local-first and global-second, just enough news and entertainment to give people things to talk to each other about but not enough to replace it.

Anyway, the book is worth reading, there's a quote I particularly like from it:

If we do not want people to become primarily consumers of industrialized, computerized entertainment and leisure, autonomous educational, artistic, craft, micro-industrial and cooperative activities must become the stuff of life. Mutual aid, emotional exchanges, raising children, taking care of one's own health, managing the commune and maintaining, equipping, and shaping one's own space, self-production -- including of food -- and repair, using equipment that doesn't always have to be individual... all this is part of the non-economic, non-market activities of liberated time.

 

[last.hummingbird]

The problem though, as I see it, isn't inherent to the technology so much as how we've used it. We've used it to optimize the wrong things; not as a way to facilitate real connections, but to replace, automate and commodify them. The thing that kills me is that it doesn't need to be this way -- technology could be optimized for bringing people together, improving people's lives, but it just isn't.

This exactly. This issue is becoming increasingly more glaring, particularly with the prevalence of AI. Its presence streamlines and automates more processes and its billionaire proponents tout it as something meant to revolutionize society but its drawbacks are already becoming evident. It's one major development that has been added to the mix, yet it compounds the existing problems of the media spaces that have already been commodified. More people recognize the drawbacks because we're living it every day. Social networks have expanded but are now simultaneously more complex because of the media we have, and it can be overwhelming to keep up with that. Connections are abound but can also feel more transactional.

If I had the option to choose between a few genuine, healthy, and present, connections in my life, or the current tech/social spaces we have and all its conflagrations, I would choose the in person connections every single time (evidently I currently lack those or I wouldn't be on this site). I also appreciate the quote from Gorz as well, it gives one something to think about.

 

[itsgone2]

This exactly. This issue is becoming increasingly more glaring, particularly with the prevalence of AI. Its presence streamlines and automates more processes and its billionaire proponents tout it as something meant to revolutionize society but its drawbacks are already becoming evident.

AI has primarily been destructive imo. There is debate to the extent of it taking jobs but it is as I've already seen it. If we need it for medical purposes, ok that's understandable, but replacing jobs is destructive to society and yes only benefits the wealthy. Also if global warming is going to kill us all, then why are we building numerous AI data centers that consume enormous amounts of energy? It's also affecting consumer energy bills.
I agree with the original post that technology has mostly driven us apart and more isolated. We have more billionaires. Great.

 

[Dejected 55]

The problem isn't the tools, social media and such, the problem is people. Most people don't want to really connect with other people. Most people want just what they want, and fuck what you want... and most people only want to interact on the most surface/shallow level to get what they want from you. Even otherwise nice people don't really want to connect and interact on a deeper meaningful level... it isn't just the assholes who are shallow. Most people, good and bad, just don't want to do it.

Some never wanted it... others, perhaps, were burned one too many times and so they shut themselves off and no longer try. Then people like me keep trying and keep being disappointed and hurt when the lack of connection happens.

Social media could be GREAT to connect people who otherwise wouldn't know they existed because they are in completely different parts of the world. It should bring people closer together and allow people to be more open and learn about each other. But, like any tool, it only works properly if you wield it correctly and for the purpose to which is was designed.

A hammer is useless if you hold the wrong end, or can't hit the nail, or try to put nails into metal, or use plastic nails. You don't even have to use it to hurt or kill people as an inappropriate form... you just have to be genuinely bad at using the hammer and put no effort into learning how to use it properly, for it to be completely useless to you.