WE live in a technological
universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed
conversation for mere connection. At home, families sit together, texting and
reading e-mail. At work executives text during board meetings. We text (and
shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we’re on dates. My students
tell me about an important new skill: it involves maintaining eye contact with
someone while you text someone else; it’s hard, but it can be done.
Over the past 15 years,
I’ve studied technologies of mobile connection and talked to hundreds of people
of all ages and circumstances about their plugged-in lives. I’ve learned that
the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not
only what we do, but also who we are. We’ve become accustomed to a new way of
being “alone together.” Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another,
and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. We want to customize
our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we
value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used to
the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party.
Our colleagues want to go
to that board meeting but pay attention only to what interests them. To some
this seems like a good idea, but we can end up hiding from one another, even as
we are constantly connected to one another. A businessman laments that
he no longer has colleagues at work. He doesn’t stop by to talk; he doesn’t
call. He says that he doesn’t want to interrupt them. He says they’re “too busy
on their e-mail.” But then he pauses and corrects himself. “I’m not telling the
truth. I’m the one who doesn’t want to be interrupted. I think I should. But
I’d rather just do things on my BlackBerry.”
