Connected, but alone!

This story starts with my ride home by the UMass shuttle. As someone put it, in the 'land of infinite parking lots' even UMass has some 4 odd parking lots away from the main campus, its a good thing because two of them are close to my home and so I dont have to walk back home. Back to the story, the first parking lot is't used a lot and so the driver asks the passengers if anyone has parked in the first parking lot. Today there were 4 passengers, including me out of which 2 had parked in the first lot. Unfortunately for them the driver was new on this route and it seems he was a bit lost in his own world. So, he forgot the stop the shuttle at the first stop. But as the shuttle passed the first lot I looked at the 2 females who wanted to get down at the first lot. Unfortunately for them, none of them realized they had missed their stop. I couldnt tell them that they missed there stop because I was listening to music on my phone (also I wanted to see how long it takes for them to realize that they missed the stop..:p). Why? Because both of them were engrossed in there phones, staying 'connected' with their social life.

Those who have been in US even for a few weeks would know that this is what we see in any kind of public place- people and their phones. After getting back home, I started my computer and the first thing I did was check my mail and then the facebook news feeds where someone had posted a tedtalk video by the same title as this blog, well not exactly the same- she had a '?', I have a '!'..:) But coincidentally that talk was very similar to what I was thinking about after the shuttle incident and so a lot of this blog is influenced by that talk. But the thoughts are original. The talk helped me frame them in a better way. :)

http://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together.html 

There was nothing I could think of that would explain what I wanted to say in a better way than this title.
To get to the point directly, the technology that we are getting with the aim of getting the world closer is actually  making us lonelier.  No doubt its the it helps us connect with our old friends who are thousands of  miles away but what about the people that are around us? The friends that we can potentially make?

Just take the example of the shuttle. I have been here for just about 6 months. Most of the times that I use it, I know half the people in it. There is always a group of people that you see at a particular time. I remember when I was a kid I used to travel to my tuition/ cricket coaching by PMT regularly. Since from where I started was the first stop I could sit on the same seat everyday. There were people who travelled by the same bus like me. After the first few days you start exchanging smiles with them and then just someday you or someone starts talking. Then, in that #90 bus I made two friends. One was an old guy who traveled at the same time and other the conductor of the bus. Especially the conductor who after a few months started sitting next to me and we used to talk about a lot of random stuff. Sadly I never got to travel without ticket (moral: not all friends are useful..:p). But this, I can never imagine it happening here. People are so busy in there own world, they dont care about actually trying to have a conversation with others.

Recently I have heard a lot of people saying "who needs people? I have enough friends. I dont need anymore". Is this really true? Man being a social animal, can he actually reach a state where he doesnt need to connect with people physically around him. The more I thought about this, the more it became clearer. The feeling of being alone is what makes people converse. This apparent antisocial instinct stem from the illusion that technology has created. As Sherry puts it- the illusion of companionship. Devices like phones always keep you connected with the things you wish to be with. Its almost like you can choose the world you want to be in, even if it means missing your stop.

Humans by nature feel the need to fit in. They are constantly in search of a niche. Most of the times people think its difficult to fit in the world given to  them. Time usually helps you to fit in which makes you feel apparently comfortable. Maybe this is the reason why people are afraid of change. Example for this, lab rotations- for the first week in the new lab, the older lab always seems to be the better one except in conditions if the previous one was really bad. This vulnerability of human nature, the fear of change is where technology gets us. The pseudo-companionship it offers is too tempting to not fall for it. Sunday evening we celebrated the birthday of one of my friends who is currently in London. We had a group chat through google hangout, he cut the cake, we sang etc etc. I admit it really felt amazing to do that. But if I think about it, it wasn't actually that fun. For one I couldn't eat the Colombian coffee cake! Hangout was a good substitute though, but its nothing close to actually being there, wishing him and giving the birthday bumps. It was a good substitute, but that's all it was, a substitute.

Another apparent advantage of technology is the power to customize. It creates a shell for you the way you want it. While on the other hand, people, the closer they are, the more are the chances that they are going to hurt you by doing something you wouldnt expect them to. In other words people arent customizable. Humans need someone they can depend on. As children we need our parents, as teenagers we need friends, later our spouse and then our progeny. But more often than expected these people we depend on do hurt us. But technology doesn't. It creates an environment just as you would wish for. You can easily avoid interacting with people you dont want to, do something you like even in places you dont enjoy being in. But this makes us so comfortable that we voluntarily seclude ourselves like I didn't take the trouble to tell the females they missed their stop because I was busy listening to a song I liked and to tell them I would have had to talk to people I didn't know.

Combining the need to fit in, fear of change and the power of customization, technology is actually making us even lonelier. Even in a place 6000 miles away from our homes we are not trying to make new friends, let alone making friends, not even taking the efforts to connect to people around us. This is all because of technology and the illusion of proximity of our past connections. As in the example Sherry gave, can a robot mimicking to be a mother's dead son actually substitute for him?

One of the things that I really miss here is sitting on a katta with my friends and being bored.. However, bored we got, we still hung on to each other, even talking about how boring it was to just sit there. But in retrospect, these are the things that actually brought us closer. Here, even by a slight sign of impending boredom, people immediately get their phones out and try to connect to some other source of social interaction.
While traveling in a group supposedly on a trip, they have headphones in their ears and facebook wall in their hands.

Are we this weak? Are we this afraid of feeling lonely? Does the fear of change affect us so much? Is the feeling of being in our own world so important? Sometimes solitude is nice. It helps you realize what are the things that actually mean something to you. Who knows you might be surprised to know that a lot of seemingly new things/ people also have an important place in your life and these might need some more of your attention.

Just once try to look at people around you in the bus or around your work bench. People are ready to listen if you are ready to tell. You dont  have to go to your facebook wall to get someone to listen to you. Just look up and you will see someone there ready to listen and if you are lucky, even understand. 
A million likes cannot substitute for the empathy you see in the eyes of a single person in front of you.