Sophia Wushanley | Alone, together

Another Look | Yes, we’re attached to our phones — but the future of communication isn’t as impersonal as it looks

By Sophia Wushanley 09/08/14 11:59pm

W h e n I raise my head mid-text to check my surroundings on my walk to class, there’s one thing I always notice: Many of the people around me still have their heads down, absorbed in their own little screens.

There are a lot of things I could say about this that have already been said: We are addicted to our smartphones. We no longer notice our surroundings. Our technological dependency is making us socially inept at best and downright rude at worst. We can’t even speak to those around us, yet we are incapable of being alone with our thoughts.

Some of these concerns are more valid than others, but they all paint the same picture: Technology is killing our real relationships and replacing them with smartphones and tablets. Soon, we’ll be part of a dystopian landscape of lonely individuals, each staring at our respective screens, our emotions blunted with only our computers to keep us company.

And on the surface, this picture may not be far from the truth. I don’t doubt that a snapshot (Snapchat?) of the near future might reveal a lot of eyes glued to tablets or surveying the world through Google glasses, but why are we so quick to condemn this shift as isolating?

Perhaps we should give ourselves the benefit of the doubt and consider that there’s more to our love of texting than an obsession with shiny electronics and instant gratification. It’s hardly the case that we always know what’s good for us, but we are not so stupid as to perpetually force ourselves into entirely unsatisfactory interactions.

There’s a significant and legitimate human connection to be gained from the texts, the Snapchats and the Facebook messages. We’ve all welled up reading a Facebook post or gotten butterflies in our stomachs from a text message — the intensity of the communication is still there, in all its visceral reality.

In fact, what we’re observing is not the decline of meaningful interaction, but a fundamental shift in how we conduct it. We have a lot more options now, and our adjusted behavior might suggest that these new choices are more enriching than they are stifling.

To begin with, arbitrary factors that once determined who we could call our friends have diminished in importance. For example, our interactions are no longer limited by geographical location. We can, at any moment, connect with exactly the person we want to talk to, no matter where they are.

As a result, we have more say regarding the people we keep in our lives. Our circle of friends might better be described as a web of connections we maintain more by choice than convenience. Our friends are our friends because we like them, not because they live nearby.

Furthermore, technology allows for conversations that otherwise might not be had, and connections that otherwise wouldn’t be made. For introverts, a digital interface can be a godsend when the intensity of face-to-face interaction is too great a barrier to overcome.

And as for the common lament that technological communication is too superficial, we need to ask ourselves if it’s replacing anything that wasn’t superficial to begin with. It’s easy to overestimate how deep most of our face-to-face conversations really are.

Texts and emails that replace mundane small talk and logistical planning aren’t depriving us of deep conversation. Who among us hasn’t complained about the shallowness of brief introductions and perfunctory pleasantries?

As convenient as it is to blame our smartphones for the fact that our exchanges aren’t thoughtful enough, this argument doesn’t hold water. We’re all free to put down our phones if that’s what it takes to think critically, and asserting that they’re capable of dumbing us down requires more evidence than an appeal to Twitter’s character limit.

Of course, we haven’t given up on seeing people in real life, and I don’t think we ever will. Face-to-face interaction is almost undeniably irreplaceable, and we all make much better dinner dates when we leave our phones in our pockets. But consider the idea that the new landscape of social interaction isn’t so bleak after all. For every person smiling at her screen, there’s someone who wrote the words she’s reading. A phone is just an interface, and we’re all still people.

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