We will all need a little human interaction
There are few things that unite us in the human experience now.
We are an anti-social society with cell phones and e-mail, instant
messaging and Facebook, MySpace and video conferencing. There is no
room to have an actual face to face interaction with someone
without a monitor and some bandwidth in between.
We will all need a little human interaction
There are few things that unite us in the human experience now. We are an anti-social society with cell phones and e-mail, instant messaging and Facebook, MySpace and video conferencing. There is no room to have an actual face to face interaction with someone without a monitor and some bandwidth in between.
Our speech is becoming peppered with “LOL” (laughing out loud) and “BRB” (be right back). It’s our version of verbal shorthand, since apparently even laughing is too taxing on our very busy time. Which ironically, is mostly spent online.
We can do anything without actually having to speak to or even look at a real, live person. We can pay bills, schedule a vacation, look for a job, avoid your mother-in law by e-mailing rather than calling (not that I would), or even build Web sites, which are a monument to everyone of what you did over the last year without actually having to write the tacky annual Christmas letter. (You know who you are).
At work, we e-mail our coworker who is two feet away to ask them what their plans are for lunch.
At night, we peruse the newspaper from our hometown which is 2,000 miles away, watch a cat pounce on an unsuspecting sleeping dog on YouTube, while at the same time we’re playing “Age of Empires” with some guy named Blow_M_Up.
I don’t even drive to Hollister to bring this column to my editor. I e-mail it from the comfort of my couch, wearing slipper socks, no make up and drinking a cream soda.
It’s things like this that make us forget how to be social beings. We’ve become an Instant Society that demands to know the second we’ve “Got Mail.” Even the microwave is becoming too slow. I am guilty of setting the timer for 2 minutes and then pacing around the kitchen, thinking that waiting 2 minutes for water to boil is ludicrous.
Getting the oil changed in your car used to be an event. You’d have to take it to the garage for your scheduled appointment, and wait while one guy changed your oil. Now, we have Super Speedy Jiffy Oil franchises where you can pull in, and your information is right there on, you guessed it, a computer.
They can see how long it’s been since you were there and how much to gouge you for, because the computer says you haven’t been there in 6,000 miles so you must obviously need a new air filter, fuel filter, coolant flush and brake job. Wait, didn’t I just come here to change the oil? I have now just gotten comfortable enough to tell the guy (the computer, if you will) that I only want the $10.99 oil change. That $10.99 oil change was costing me at least $60 every time I went in there.
We have to have the power to say no to the computer. Meanwhile, instead of that one guy, now there are four and you’re out the door in less than half an hour and the only interaction there is, “That’s (snort) $10.99 Ma’am.”
The whole thing translates into quick fix laughs and fast service overload.
I admit it. My family is addicted to junk TV. But we also like to watch “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel so it feels like we’ve gone on vacation. From the couch. Not dealing with…people.
I realized how starved I was for a common bond with humanity when I went to the opening night showing of The Simpsons movie.
It was a packed house and the demographic was mostly teenaged boys, as pointed out by The Teeneaged Girl, but we didn’t care. We stood in a line that spanned the lobby and through some double doors in the back. There was a lot of mumbled swearing about the long line, and then a funny thing happened. We all chuckled and complained in unison. And then shyly to each other, at first. This human interaction thing takes a little getting used to. The line began moving and we made cattle noises as we filed into the theater.
Engrossed in (spoiler alert) Homer eating a doughnut, I realized that I was having a good time. The movie was cute. But that wasn’t why, entirely. I noticed that I was enjoying the fact that we were all laughing at the same thing at the same time.
Something on a computer screen might be funny and you laugh, but if you send it to your friend and they laugh, you miss that laugh – that connection. And for those of you wondering if you should see The Simpsons, I did LOL.
