Death by Communication

                                          Death by Communication

                           Published in Marietta Daily Journal Feb. 12, 2017

            Anyone who decries money or says it is evil has never been without it.  The same is true of technology.  Even so, as the old saying goes, “there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.”  With technology, we are just about to reach that point.

            Don’t think you’re about to read a rant against technology and a cry for the good old days when times were bad.  Having grown up without running water, with a single fireplace being the only source of heat, and with a much loved radio being the only connection to the outside world, I consider technology a wondrous thing.

            However, for all its wonders and utility, pervasive technology is producing certain effects that need to be considered.

  Today technological devices are creating pseudo-communication, and pseudo-communication is killing genuine communication.  It’s also affecting families negatively and decreasing the concentration skills of children and teens alike.  Technology has absolutely seduced the field of education.  How many schools are using technology because their little charges are drawn to it, not because of its lasting educational effect?

            Genuine communication is not always verbal, but whatever form it takes, it does require attentiveness.  Attentiveness requires – whether we like it or not, and most of us don’t – some listening, consideration of others, and Heaven forbid, some pause.

            These three requirements are not exactly what technology fosters or inspires.  Instead, technology feeds our immature demand for immediacy.  We want it and we want it yesterday.

            Surely the most reliable and fruitful communication is eyeball to eyeball, but since we can’t always be present with the one with whom we’re communicating, we should be grateful for all the technological advances that at least allow second-hand communication.

            But oh, how we abuse it.  No, strike that.  Oh, how we abuse others (usually those we love most) by misusing our technological devices.

            How often in restaurants do we see Dad and kids frantically thumbing their smart phones, either to chat or play a game while Mom sits amongst them in a separate, lonely world?  And why is it that so often Mom is the odd one?  Moms have smart phones too.  They know about and embrace technology’s wonders.  It may be that Mom desires something else for her family during dinner besides all the “connecting.”

                        Believe it or not, there are signs that our love affair with technology is cooling.  Silicon Valley still has its grip on us, what with music from the cloud, keeping our Do-List on a battery-powered device, and reading online, but according to David Sax, author of “The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter,” humans are beginning to rage against the machine.

            Sax points to these developments: sales of paper notebooks and board games have grown for a decade; Amazon is now opening the very brick-and-mortar stores it set out to displace; nostalgia is setting in among baby boomers who are backing away from technology; and (sit down for this one) millennials are being drawn to the “raw utility” of pre-technology tools such as (don’t get up yet) the notebook.

            Sax’s explanation and conclusion is that while opting for less-modern technology is surprising and might not make sense, more people of all ages are seeing that ”humans aren’t machines but are complex creatures of emotion whose human experience is still a reliable platform from which to solve problems, no matter how many technological platforms we embrace.”

            In December of 2015 the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study showing that electronic toys and excessive screen time have become hindrances to children’s verbal development.  Here and there college professors are banning laptops in their classrooms.  “Students aren’t taking notes, they’re streaming hockey games,” says Stuart Green, professor at Rutgers Law School.

            But wouldn’t you know it!  If this slight retreat from technology produces withdrawal symptoms, just strap the Muse Headband on your head, let it measure your brain-wave activity, and it will provide you with the “calm state” you need.  Is it ocean roar you need?  Chirping birds?  Falling rain?  Then escape your technology by plugging in to “meditative technology.”  (Is this crazy? Is it meditation?)

            In spite of Sax’s findings, I’m afraid human presence, the mother’s milk of all human communication, is eroding.  We are turning from depth to lateral “connection,” from communion to pseudo-communication, from human touch to the tapping of keys.

            I for one want to yell, “Stop it! Talk to somebody!  Do not go gentle into the murkiness of pseudo-communication! Resist it!  Never let a screen or a headphone become your master!”

Roger Hines

2/8/17