Culture trends in America: Connectivity and isolation in the 21st Century

The cat is out of the bag, as it were, on Google latest attempt to dominate the digital world. Unstrung reports that Google put in at least a 4.6 billion dollar bid for the700 MHz spectrum of wireless bandwidth. Unstrungs Dan Jonas reports:
“ Google (Nasdaq: GOOG - message board) has added to the pressure on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt a more "open" approach to the forthcoming 700 MHz wireless broadband spectrum auctions, saying that it will meet the minimum price of $4.6 billion for a specific bandwidth block if the commission accepts four conditions it wants to apply to the auction winners.”
What exactly Google will be wanting to do with this bandwidth is still subject to speculation, but one thing is clear Whatever it is, it’s going to make us all even more “connected” than ever before. Ten years ago, if you wanted to have a conversation with someone, you had only three choices. You could call their house, you could send a letter, or your could drive over for a visit. About that same time a novel technology called email had just began to come of age for the average American. Since then, advances in information technology have revolutionized how we connect with each other. Today, I can be reached by landline, cell phone, email, snail mail, AIM, MSN, facebook, myspace, and text message. Oh, or you could just come visit. So with all of these new ways to connect, why is that we as individuals feel so alone? Rachel Baldino at sixwise reports on a recent study exploring social isolation in the United States:
“Lynn Smith-Lovin, a sociology professor at Duke University, and one of the key researchers involved in conducting this in-depth, comprehensive study, says the findings indicate that one fourth of Americans reported feeling that they have nobody with whom they can discuss their innermost thoughts, worries and woes. According to Shankar Vendantam's recent Washington Post article about this study, this is "more than double the number who were similarly isolated in 1985. Overall, the number of people Americans have in their closest circle of confidants has dropped from around three to about two." This study is a powerful affirmation that simply being connected digitally isn’t the same as being in connection with others. You’ll notice that the number of individuals that feel isolated has doubled in a timeframe that has been marked by the rise of the internet and the cell phone. Is there a correlation between these two facts? I would have to say I believe that there is. In fact, I think this answers some of the more puzzling questions concerning the way that people interact in modern culture. Almost certainly you’ve seen in the news recently individuals who have ruined their own careers by disclosing intimate and at times sordid details about their personal lives online. Why is it that we as a people are gravitating towards the exhibitionism of full disclosure to strangers, while at the same time we seem irresistibly attracted to voyeuristic reality television? I think the answer, or part of the answer, lies in the findings of the aforementioned study. As an individual’s circle of friends continues to shrink, there will be an ever increasing need for someone to tell our troubles too. We just want someone to care. And at some point one becomes so desperate that the comments page on facebook or myspace becomes an acceptable replacement for true intimacy. Likewise, reality TV has become our replacement for keeping our friends secrets. Instead, we have the weak substitute of watching reality show contestants and celebrities air their dirty laundry. What a sad sick “connection” between people. Yet this is exactly the type of connections that we seem to be having more and more. Facebook instead of friends, Survivor instead of being someone’s confidant, and of course, we substitute pornography in place of actually being lovers. This could be an entire article unto itself. Even if we set aside for a moment the moral aspects of sexual addiction, the statistics tell a disturbing tale.
In a survey of 5,750 participants, 78% said they were addicted to pornography. 51% said that they viewed pornographic material daily. Sex is the #1 searched for topic on the Internet (Dr. Robert Weiss, Sexual Recovery Institute, Washington Times, 1/26/2000), and the number of pornographic web pages now tops 260 million, a growth rate of nearly 20-fold since 1998.(N2H2 Incorporated, “N2H2 Reports Number of Pornographic Web Pages…”2004).[Source] It’s abundantly clear from these numbers that we are seeking to replace even our most intimate relationships with a shallow substitute. And I feel that once again at the root of this disturbing trend is a deep sense of being “alone together”. We have this sense that, although we are connected to each other in more ways than ever before, we are becoming out of touch with each other. I am not suggesting in this article that information and communication technologies are bad. But neither are they good. They are simple a tool and as such, they are amoral. It is up to us as a society to realize that these information technologies are merely a means to enhance our interactions with each other, not replace them. Until we cease make these digital “connections” an end unto themselves, we will continue to feel as if we’re all alone together.