Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

There’s been lots of news recently about how we communicate with one another, or how technology is affecting how and where and from whom we obtain information. The headlines are almost universally negative. Have you noticed that, too? My good friend Brian Tucker at Crains Cleveland Business bemoans the fact that digital sources, specifically sources that conform to the readers’ interests, are burying traditional published media. Three social networking sites were collateral damage in a cyber-attack aimed at an economist from Ukraine; a 24 hour blackout of Twitter seems to have rendered 10 million people mute. A woman was so depressed without her Blackberry during a month-long “vacation” from her device that the reunion was deemed worthy of a front page article in USA Today. The Western world is wireless and webbed, and we’re all reaching out and being reached here, there, and everywhere.

The White family is due for cell phone upgrades this Fall and my wife and kids are all excited about the prospect of new and better technology. They are really enjoying the prospect of prospecting for that newest, latest, bestest phone. Me? Not so much. It seems as though all of the new stuff on the new phones will simply allow me to be available to more people more of the time; if I am ABLE to text and tweet and Facebook there’s a greater likelihood that someone will EXPECT me to do so RIGHT NOW. I’m pretty sure that’s not such a great thing.

The most powerful product in the social history of man might be the cell phone. Think about it. Totally connected at all times, with ever-expanding connectivity tools. The cell phone has brought about a true paradigm shift in First World human communication. It is the ultimate expression of the ability to reach farther and farther to contact and connect. The “Social Media Revolution” didn’t really explode until Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the revolutionary venues were tied to a cell phone.

And therein lies the problem. It is that most remote connection that has overwhelmed connecting.

For those of you over that age of 35 or so, remember what the phone was like in your youth? It didn’t ring too very much, did it? And each ring was important because… well… it was. No trivial phone calls from relatives or marketing calls or pollsters calling to query about the mundane. If you were home and the phone rang you jumped for it, an instinct that became a part of the Western social DNA.

How about the caller? What was their experience like? No call-waiting to ensure that each call would be answered. No answering machines or voicemail. No “for English press 1.” You got busy signals! If the phone kept ringing you didn’t have to wonder if someone saw your number on caller ID and said “no way”– you knew they weren’t home (or they were on the can–no one had phones in the bathroom then!)

Now? Well, There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. That unlimited ability to connect at any time has become an OBLIGATION to be connected. Right NOW. Always. Cell phone as priority 1. You’ve seen it; heck, you’ve DONE it. You’re having a conversation with someone, right there in front of you, someone you can literally reach out and touch–you know, with your hand. Their cell phone rings or buzzes or sings and without any conscious thought out comes the phone and they answer it. Or they tap out a text. Right in front of you, mid-sentence. Heck, in the middle of a hug you can feel them reaching for it. Even call-waiting…as much as my Dad bemoans the loss of the courtesies of a bygone era he still clicks me out, puts me on hold, because “someone’s on the other line!” And I am supposed to get excited about a new phone that will make all of this EASIER?!

I propose that there is a Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: SPACE is conserved, just like energy. The space that has been removed between each end of a cellphone/technology-driven connection is not destroyed, it is simply placed between the two physical bodies in the interrupted personal connection. Whether it’s a call, a text, or a tweet, the cellphone is the elephant in the room, the elephant right between two people who are close enough to one another to shake hands.

Connected? Sure we are. But we were pretty connected in days gone by, just in a different way. We lived with our parents. Our grandparents lived upstairs. Our aunts and our uncles lived with our cousins around the corner or on the other end of town. The coolest connection was two cans attached by a string stretched between your bedroom window and your best friend’s window next door. The elephant in the room was some family story that everyone already knew that was so trivial that even USA Today would bury it on page 12.

So, what to do? How do we utilize all of this new stuff in order to INCREASE our contacts and connections without increasing the distance between us when we are together in the same room? I think  I will become an elephant tamer. I’ll start with my own elephant because I am just as guilty as most others, and I think I might start by buying a smaller elephant, a new cellphone that does mostly nothing but make phone calls. I’ll help those in my charge (the White progeny) by pointing out the choices that they are making, the message they are sending when they choose the elephant over that someone right there. I’ll continue to make people uncomfortable in my office when they answer the elephant during an exam (people actually do that–answer the phone when I’m in the middle of examining them!). Heck, I’ll probably tease them when they twitch, that visible effort necessary to stop themselves from answering that silly ringtone they bought for 5 bucks–I think of that as petting your elephant when you can’t talk to it.

Heck, I might even start leaving MY elephant at home. Hmm…just thinking about that makes me  feel a little lighter.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.