‘I Forgot My Phone’ on YouTube.

SAN FRANCISCO — Last weekend, I was watching television with a few friends,
browsing the week’s most popular YouTube videos, when a piece in the comedy
section called “I Forgot My Phone” caught my eye. As I was about to click play,
however, a friend warned, “Oh, don’t watch that. I saw it yesterday, and it’s really
sad.”

The two-minute video, which has been viewed more than 15 million times, begins
with a couple in bed. The woman, played by the comedian and actress Charlene
deGuzman, stares silently while her boyfriend pays no mind and checks his
smartphone.

The subsequent scenes follow Ms. deGuzman through a day that is downright
dystopian: people ignore her as they stare at their phones during lunch, at a concert,
while bowling and at a birthday party. (Even the birthday boy is recording the party
on his phone.) The clip ends with Ms. deGuzman back in bed with her boyfriend at
the end of the day; he is still using his phone.

Ms. deGuzman’s video makes for some discomfiting viewing. It’s a direct hit on our
smartphone-obsessed culture, needling us about our addiction to that little screen and
suggesting that maybe life is just better led when it is lived rather than viewed. While
the clip has funny scenes — a man proposing on a beach while trying to record the
special moment on his phone — it is mostly … sad.

“I came up with the idea for the video when I started to realize how ridiculous we are
all being, myself included, when I was at a concert and people around me were
recording the show with their phones, not actually watching the concert,” Ms.
deGuzman said in an interview.

“It makes me sad that there are moments in our lives where we’re not present because
we’re looking at a phone,” said Ms. deGuzman, who also wrote the piece, which was
directed by Miles Crawford. She mused that, like it or not, experiencing life through a
four-inch screen could be the new norm.

Or not. Ms. deGuzman’s video may have landed at one of those cultural moments
when people start questioning if something has gone too far and start doing something
about it.

Last week, the Unsound music festival in Poland banned fans from recording the
event, saying it did not want “instant documentation” and distractions that might take
away from the performances. In April, during a show in New York City, Karen O, the
lead singer of the rock band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, told audience members to put
away their phones (using an expletive to emphasize her point).

A number of New York restaurants, including Momofuku Ko and Chef’s Table at

Brooklyn Fare, have prohibited people from photographing their food. (Note to
foodies: Your quinoa does not need to be artfully posted with an old-timey look on
Instagram.) And, of course, many mothers and fathers who fought to keep the
television out of the kitchen may see smartphones as the next threat to dinnertime
civility.

A group of friends were on their phones during a birthday party at the Gowanus Yacht
Club bar in Brooklyn.Credit Michael Nagle for The New York Times

In the late 1950s, televisions started to move into the kitchen from the living room,
often wheeled up to the dinner table to join the family for supper. And then, TV at the
dinner table suddenly became bad manners. Back to the living room the TV went.

“It never really caught on in most U.S. homes,” said Lynn Spigel, a professor at the
Northwestern University School of Communication and author of the book, “Make
Room for TV.” “At one point, a company even tried to invent a contraption called the
TV Stove, which was both a TV and a stove,” she said.

So are smartphones having their TV-in-the-kitchen moment?

“Every experience is being mediated and conceived around how it can be captured
and augmented by our devices,” said Mathias Crawford, a researcher in human-
computer interactions and communications at Stanford University. “No place is this
more apparent than our meals, where every portion leading up to, during and after a
dining experience is being carved out by particular apps.”

People make dinner reservations on OpenTable; check in on Foursquare when they

arrive at the restaurant; take a picture of their food to share on Instagram; post on
Twitter a joke they hear during the meal; review the restaurant on Yelp; then, finally,
coordinate a ride home using Uber.

“If you’re wondering when people are going to reject the phone, that will mean they
need to reject Silicon Valley’s entire concept of how you ought to be dining,” Mr.
Crawford said. But, he added, it was possible. “Yes, society is changing, but the
iPhone is only really six years old, and those changes aren’t set in place.” Given the
overwhelming response to Ms. deGuzman’s video, people are at least thinking about
those changes.
“It wasn’t until this year that I’ve had these revelations about living in the moment
without my phone,” Ms. deGuzman said. “I still have my phone with me, but I try to
leave it in my purse. Now I find myself just taking in a moment, and I don’t have to
post a picture about it.”

E-mail: bilton@nytimes.com

People today are more connected to one another than ever before in human history,
thanks to Internet-based social networking sites and text messaging. But they’re also
more lonely and distant from one another in their unplugged lives, says Massachusetts
Institute of Technology social psychologist Sherry Turkle, PhD. This is not only
changing the way we interact online, it’s straining our personal relationships, as well.

Turkle’s new book, “Alone Together” (Basic Books, 2011), explores the ways online
social networks and texting culture are changing how people relate to society, their
parents and friends.

The book is based on meta-analyses of individual and family studies and her own
interviews with 300 children and 150 adults. Turkle maintains that people who choose
to devote large portions of their time to connecting online are more isolated than ever
in their non-virtual lives, leading to emotional disconnection, mental fatigue and
anxiety.

The Monitor spoke to Turkle about her research and what it means for the Facebook
generation.
How has social networking through technology changed society the most?

The most dramatic change is our ability to be “elsewhere” at any point in time, to
sidestep what is difficult, what is hard in a personal interaction and go to another place
where it does not have to be dealt with. So, it can be as simple as what happens when
15-year-olds gather for a birthday party. As anyone who has ever been 15 knows,
there is a moment at such events when everyone wants to leave. Things get awkward.
It is, however, very important that everyone stay and learn to get along with each
other. These days, however, when this difficult moment comes, each 15-year-old
simply retreats onto Facebook. Whether or not they physically leave the birthday
party, they have “left.”

When teens tell me that they’d rather text than talk, they are expressing another aspect
of the new psychological affordances of the new technology — the possibility of our
hiding from each other. They say a phone call reveals too much, that actual
conversations don’t give them enough control over what they want to say.
Does social technology isolate people from the real world, or augment our personal relationships?

Both. Some people do use social networks to keep up with real friendships, to keep
them lively and up to date. There is, however, another trend in which people “friend”
people they don’t know or where they are unsure of the nature of their connection. We
Facebook-friend people who do not know their commitment to us and similarly, we
are unsure of what commitment we have to them. They can, in fact, be more like
“fans” than friends. But their presence can sustain us and distract us and make it less
likely for us to look beyond them to other social encounters. They can provide the
illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship, without the demands of
intimacy.
How does that reduced intimacy cause problems in our relationships?

We are tempted to give precedence to people we are not with over people we are with.
People talk to me about their phones and laptops as the “place for hope” in their lives,
the “place where sweetness comes from.” We text during dinner with our families.
We text as we drive. We text when we are with our children in the playground.
Children say they try to make eye contact with their parents and are frustrated because
their parents are looking down at their smart phones when they come out of school or
after school activities. Young men talk about how only a few years ago, their dads
used to watch Sunday sports with them and during the station breaks or between
plays, they used to chat. Now their fathers are too often checking their email during
games. The young men I interview sometimes call it “the BlackBerry zone” when
they speak of their fathers’ unavailability. For those who would object that it’s the
same as reading a Sunday paper while you watch sports, it is not. We give another
level of attentional commitment to our devices.
What are some of the benefits of solitude and taking time off from technology?

It’s a great psychological truth that if we don’t teach our children how to be alone,
they will always be lonely. When they’re always connected, children, adolescents and
adults become dependent on the presence of others for validation in the most basic
ways. When people move from, “I have a feeling, I want to make a call” to “I want to
have a feeling, I need to send a text,” something unfortunate happens to their relations
with others. They start to need other people to feel validated and they cannot approach
others as full, individual, differentiated people. Rather, other people are used, as what
one might think of as part objects — spare parts to support a fragile self.

In a recent New York Times article, the founder of an online dating site
(www.datemyschool.com) summed up the problem of his generation by saying that,
“People in the 21st century are alone. We have so many new ways of communicating,
yet we are so alone.”
For young people who’ve never really known a world without social technology, how can you stress the
importance of preserving a non-networked life?

My guarded optimism about the future comes from the young people I speak with
who already complain about having to perform a character on social networks. Living
on social networks means performing one’s profile, and indeed multiple profiles,
almost all the time. Young people complain of performance anxiety. Between
performance exhaustion and the sense that they have never had their parents’ full
attention, young people are in fact nostalgic for something they have never had.

One of the case studies in “Alone Together” that most moved me was the case of
Sanjay, a 16-year-old whom I met for an interview. During the hour we met, Sanjay
had put away his phone and laptop. After the interview was over, he took it out and he
had over 100 new messages, most of them texts. He explained that some of these were
from a girlfriend “in meltdown,” some of these were from a group of friends with
whom he was starting a band.

As he collected his technology in order to begin to respond to these communications,

Sanjay was clearly overwhelmed. He said, not particularly to me but more to himself,
as a comment on his situation, “How long am I going to have to do this?” As we
ratchet up the volume and velocity of our communication, we begin to set up a pace
that takes us away from each other.
Do men and women use social networking technology differently?

In my own research, I find that men are more likely to be confrontational on social
networking sites and women more likely to “stalk” (obsessively check people’s status
updates and learn about them) and less likely to bully or be confrontational.

One gender element that did become apparent is that mothers are now breastfeeding
and bottle-feeding their babies as they text. Of course, in feeding an infant, so much
more is going on than giving nutrition to a baby. There is the emotional exchange on
the most primitive level, the feeling of gratifying someone and being gratified in
return. A mother made tense by text messages is going to be experienced as tense by
the child. And that child is vulnerable to interpreting that tension as coming from
within the relationship with the mother. This is something that needs to be watched
very closely. It reminds me of something that has occurred to me often as I have done
this research: Technology can make us forget important things we know about life.
Do you have any strategies for getting away from technology and nurturing real-life relationships?

I have some basic rules. I think of them as creating sacred spaces around certain
activities. No technology at meals. I used to check email before my daughter came
down to breakfast, but then I got into a “just let me finish this one last email before I
make you breakfast” mode and she called me on it! So, no technology when I’m with
my daughter or out with friends.

When my colleagues bring their phones to dinner and place them on the table, I
sometimes tease them about the unlikeliness of “epistemological emergencies.” The
idea that we should put each other on pause as though we were machines in order to
attend to those who are not present has become commonplace. It needs to be
examined. I don’t think that is how we want to treat each other.

Also, no technology when I’m taking time for myself in nature. I have a house on
Cape Cod and I notice people walk the dunes with their eyes down, looking at their
smart phones. I think it is important to teach the next generation the importance of
walking in nature, and in the city, and focusing on those experiences. I am concerned
about our losing touch with the realities of our physical surroundings. I am concerned
about our losing touch with the kind of solitude that refreshes and restores.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/06/social-networking.aspx

By Michael Price

June 2011, Vol 42, No. 6

Is Technology Making Us Loners?

By Jen Lassen

Posted Jun 30 2014 - 10:38am
Share this

You scroll through your Instagram feed-in silence-while you’re in the car with your family. You Tweet instead

of striking up a conversation with your seatmate on the train. You text your BFFs instead of making plans with

them, content watching Netflix alone in bed while you’re glued to your phone.  

Is technology making us loners? Are we, as “millennials,” becoming more comfortable with the idea of being

alone, yet staying connected 24/7? Let’s think about it: how many minutes each day do we actually devote to

technology? Take a moment to stop and think about each time you check your cell, post a status, or upload a

picture. Personally, between the texting, Tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming, and emailing I do on a daily

basis, my number probably hovers somewhere around two hours. That’s two hours less time I get each day to

read, spend quality time with family and friends (sans the distraction of iMessages or Notifications), be

outside, spend time writing, or anything other than staring at a screen. And let’s talk about the glaring irony

present: I’m sitting here, typing away on my laptop, writing about how technology eats away at our personal

time. Who’s pointing the finger now?

But time and time again, people everywhere have asked these same questions about technology. This argument

has even caught the attention of scientists and medical professionals-so much that many studies have been

done to figure out if there really are noticeable social side effects from using, and overusing, technology. A
recent article published on Forbes online provides some stats about our social networks: those who reported

feeling most alone currently are young people under the age of 35, the most prolific of all social networkers.

Another recent study found that 48% of respondents only had one confidant compared to a similar study done

25 years ago, when people said they had about three people they could really trust. A study by Harvard

Business Review found that team performance went up 50% when teams socialized more and limited email for

“operational-only” issues. Clearly, there’s a theme here. We don’t just “become more lonely” as a human

race over time. It seems that with the advent of social media, laptops, and apps, we’re choosing screens over

personal interactions. Technology definitely has something to do with all of this…but are we going to stop it?

In September 2013, the New York Times opened up an online forum to students ages 13 and older to respond

to the question: Does technology make us more alone? Some agreed, and some disagreed. Below are some

responses:
“I dont think it’s necessarily making us more alone, it just depends on the person and their interests. Some

people enjoy sitting and talking and being social, but others enjoy the internet and technology in general. I

believe it just depends what you are into.”

“Technology makes us feel more alone because people are too focused on what’s on there screen than what’s

in happening in real life. most teenagers are very anti-social, the only time they communicate are through a

phone like texting and social networks. they feel like communicating through a phone is much better than

communicating face to face. a lot of teenagers dont know how to communicate to people face to face cause

they are one, too focused on their phones and two they haven’t learned to do that, no one has bothered to teach

them how to talk to people. I believe people should not be so attached to there electronics, so they can focus on

the more important stuff.”

“Technology makes us more alone because it makes people socially awkward which leads us into isolating

ourselves from the real world and talking less.”

“Technology does make us more alone. Technology negatively influences social interaction, makes our

community socially awkward and causes our people to embellish online to be someone they are not.”

“To have a device at our hands causes us to become us to become lonelier. Technology makes us forget the

different between being alone and being lonely. In addition, our communication slacks and, sadly, we separate

ourselves from the real world to attend a virtual one.”

But even given these opinions, technology has become a necessary evil. We aren’t gonna stop using it, nor

will our world ever be technology-free. It’s here to stay. Now, it’s up to us how frequently we use it, and how

much we let it dominate our lives. In reality, the real world > the virtual world. The world offers us so

much more than a screen ever will. Ultimately, it’s our decision whether or not we view the world through a

screen, or with our very own two eyes. 

 
SOURCES:

-http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/does-technology-somehow-make-us-more-alone/comment-

page-14/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

-http://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2012/05/24/text-or-talk-is-technology-making-you-lonely/

by Margie Warrell

As social media reshapes how we connect, we have to

rethink what we need to feel fulfilled in our relationships,
and realize that no amount of tweets, texts or Facebook
status updates can provide it.  While social networking is
a great tool, there’s a profound difference between an
online social network and a real one.  Despite the fact
there will always be someone, somewhere awake to “like”
our latest status update – however witty or banal it may
be – when it comes to friends, quantity doesn’t equal
quality.
Recent studies have found that despite being more
connected than ever, more people feel more alone than
ever. Surprisingly, those who report feeling most alone,
are those you’d expect it from least: young people under
35 who are the most prolific social networkers of all.  
Another recent study found that 48% of respondents only
had one confidant compared to a similar study 25 years
ago when people said they had about three people they
could confide in. So as we have built expansive social
networks online, the depth of our networks offline has
decreased.  So it seems that because technology makes it
easier to stay in touch while keeping distance, more and
more people find themselves feeling distant and never
touching. Or at least not enough to avoid us feeling
increasingly alone.

As I wrote in Find Your Courage, human beings crave

intimacy. Neurobiologists have found we are wired for it. 
Yet genuine intimacy demands vulnerability and
vulnerability requires courage.  It requires that we lay
down the masks we can so easily hide behind online, and
reveal all of who we are with others – the good, the bad
and the sometimes not so (photo-shopped) pretty.
Social media allows us to control what we share.   It
appeals to our vulnerability and vanity. We can pick and
choose which photos we share and craftily edit our words
to ensure we convey the image we want others to see. Yet
it also provides the illusion of friendship that, in real life,
may be shallow, superficial and unable to stand the
demands, and pressures genuine friendships entail.

Digital communication can never replace in person, face-

to-face, contact in building relationships – personal and
professional. As a study by Harvard Business Review
found, team performance went up 50% when teams
socialized more and limited email for more operational
only issues.  But whether loneliness leads people to the
Internet, or the internet to loneliness, it seems that many
of us turn to the internet to avoid simply being with
ourselves. As Sherri Turkle author of Alone
Together wrote, until we learn how to be okay with
solitude, we are not going to be able to connect deeply
with others. Social networking provides a means of
escaping confronting aspects of ourselves and our lives
we wish were different, better, more glamorous and less
mundane. It’s an all too convenient tool for avoiding
sometimes harsh realities and playing pretend (to
ourselves and others) with our life.   Online websites
promise avatars that will allow us to love our bodies, love
our lives, and find the true romance we dream of. But at
what cost to the real life (marriage, body, friendships) we
have to face when we close our computer down?  Even
the most brilliant and mesmerizing avatars cannot
compensate for what is missing in real life.
Don’t get me wrong; online technology is not some
“necessary evil.” Far from it. It’s a magnificent tool for
staying in touch with people across miles, time zones and
years. We’ve all witnessed it’s power in rallying people
behind noble causes (think KONY 2012), overthrow
governments (as we saw in the Arab Spring last year),
enable people in isolated corners of the globe to plug into
resources and information they could never otherwise
access (think North Korea), and provide opportunity to
conduct business more efficiently than ever before.  But
like all tools, we have to learn how to use it well, and not
let it use us. We cannot become dependent on it to do
things it simply cannot do – like fulfill our deep innate
need for intimacy, genuine connection and real
friendship. All needs which can only be fulfilled through
sometimes-uncomfortable conversations, in which we
share openly what is happening to us and engage
authentically with what is going on for others.

As we rely on technology to communicate more

efficiently in an increasingly global world, we mustn’t
lose tough with the physical community around us or
forget that human element within any relationship can
never be replaced by technology. The more we rely on
technology in our lives the more mindful we must be to
turn it off and spend time with people, without our
gadgets beeping at us to return texts that really, aren’t
worth our time to reply to. While it might be stating the
obvious, if you want to connect with people more, you
need to be in converse with people more – openly,
authentically and with a vulnerabilitythat may
sometimes make you uncomfortable.
7 STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING A REAL SOCIAL
NETWORK:
1.   Unplug: Turn off your computer, put down your
iPhone, step away from your iPad, and take time to
engage with people, in person, with face-to-face
communication. A night at home with 500 of your FB
friends can never compare with an evening out with five
friends, or even one friend. If you can’t connect face-to-
face at least switch off the computer and pick up the
phone for a meaningful conversation, rather than a series
of cryptic texts or tweets.  Fifty text messages over a day
can never compare with just five minutes of open, caring
and honest conversation.
2.   Become a better listener: Too often we talk to
much and listen too little. Learn to listen well and be
okay with yours and others stumbles. We can’t edit real
conversation and we don’t want to. It’s when we hesitate,
stumble on our words or simply find ourselves sitting in
silence without any words that we reveal ourselves to
others and connect most deeply. As I’ve said before we
connect to others through our vulnerabilities, not
through our brilliance.
3.   Engage in your community: Get involved in your
local community or neighborhood. Join the local tennis
club, or volunteer to help clean up the local park or spend
some helping at a local service organization.
4.   Practice Conversation: If you are out of practice
at meeting people take small steps. Make the most of all
chances for social contact, whether it’s speaking to the
local greengrocer or responding to a fellow bus passenger
who strikes up a conversation. For some people, just
making eye contact can be difficult. So it may be that you
have to begin with just that.
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Intelligent Advice for Intelligent People

 
Self Improvement : Health : Money : People : Psychology

Does Technology Make You Lonely?

Within the last few decades loneliness has become an increasingly common occurrence,
and is something which seems to have been driven largely by recent technological
advancements.

As a result of these advancements, the average person is exposed to an increasingly

large number of people each day. But unlike in the past where these contacts would
occur face to face, in today’s society, most of this contact occurs via a television screen,
a computer monitor or a cell phone.

In this article, we shall look at why this blind form of communication is one of the main
reasons why people are beginning to feel more and more lonely, despite being
surrounded by more and more people.

The importance of human interaction

Humans are genetically designed to gain satisfaction from meaningful relationships with
real people, and as a result, receive many benefits from doing so.

For example, babies who are handled frequently when they are young grow bigger,
have better muscle development and are generally healthier than babies who receive
little or no physical contact.

Even from birth human contact is essential for normal growth and development.
Another example can be found with people who have lots of friends in their life. These
people are much more likely to be happier, healthier and live longer than lonely people.
Whatever the reasons may be for these mental and physical benefits, the fact remains
that there is something about real human interaction that completes us, as without it,
our body and life slowly starts to break down.

Closer together yet further apart

Although technology has made global communication possible, but paradoxically, it has
also resulted in less human interaction. A good example of this can be found with the
average family.

Whereas in the past a family would sit down, eat dinner together and talk, nowadays,
it’s far more common to sit in front of the TV and eat without talking.

This is how many families spend "quality" time together.

If you do talk it is usually not about anything significant, since neither you nor the other
person wants to be distracted from what you are watching.

And that’s if you’re lucky, as most of the time you will be told to “sssh”! In some
families they don’t even sit together, as the ready instant meal means that they can eat
whenever and wherever they want.

Unfortunately, this self-imposed isolation is not confined solely to dinner time, as after
dinner, each family member will go their separate ways.

Usually, returning back to the TV, going on the Internet, playing a computer game,
listening to their iPod or chatting on their cellular phone.
 Even pets are now beginning to spend less time with their family.
The result of this technological bubble is that people are having less face to face
communication, and more indirect communication via intermediaries such as computer
screens or telephones.

The frustration of virtual life

Despite the fact that technology now allows a person to communicate with lots of
people all over the world, in reality, no matter how many “friends” you have on social
networks like “Facebook”, they still result in the same thing; a technological bubble
which keeps you isolated from real human contact and real human interaction.

As long as you are isolated from other people you will continue to feel lonely, because
these virtual friends cannot adequately satisfy your needs, wants and desires in the
long-term.
 No matter how many "friends" you have online, it's no substitute for real life human
interaction.
The reason for this lack of satisfaction is because most people use technology as a
means of distracting themselves from their feelings.

This makes them feel good in the short-term, but eventually, the distractor leads to
frustration because it is not adequately satisfying that person’s real needs.

For example, suppose that someone is feeling lonely, but rather than listening to this
feeling they distract themselves from their loneliness by chatting online and
participating in various forums.

For the time being, this person may think that their needs are being satisfied, as
chatting with their Internet friends takes away the feeling of loneliness which they once
had.
 Some people try to make friends online in order to compensate for a lack of friends in
real life.
Given enough time, however, this person will become increasingly more frustrated
because no matter how much they chat online, they can never seem to fulfil one of
their most basic needs; a real relationship with real human contact and interaction.

The longer they ignore their feeling of loneliness the more painful it will become, and
the greater their desire will be to use the distractor (chatting online) to further distract
themselves from those feelings. If this continues, the person may eventually slip into
depression.
 Online relationships can be very frustrating as there is a limit to how much they can
fulfill your needs.
If you have ever chatted with someone online and wanted to meet up with them, then
what you experienced was this feeling of frustration that I just described. It came as a
result of you being unable to satisfy your needs with your current actions.

Another example which shows how virtual relationships fail to satisfy our needs, can be
found with online dating. Most people find it fun to flirt for a while, but eventually,
virtual flirting is not very satisfying.

This is why online dating frequently results in people meeting up in the real world,
because face to face communication and contact is the only way to truly satisfy your
needs.

The Effect of Technology on Social Relationships

When you communicate virtually or by phone, your communication is much more

limited than it is when you communicate in person. For example, talking to someone
online excludes the use of body language, voice tone and eye contact from a
conversation.
As a result, the less face to face communication you have with people, the worse your
social skills are likely to become. The effect of these poor social skills can then make it
difficult for a person to form meaningful and lasting relationships outside the virtual
world.

People with poor social skills tend to be outcasts in society.

For example, they may find it difficult to communicate their message verbally, be
unable to understand what people are saying to them or be unable to read the
various nonverbal forms of communication which signal whether a person is interested
or not in what they are saying.

Do you think this sounds far-fetched? Well it’s not, as there are already people who are
using internet slang terms such as LOL (laugh out loud) in real life conversations!

Sure, this is fine if you’re speaking with someone who knows what this means, but if
you’re not, you might as well be speaking in a different language because they won’t
have a clue what you are saying.
 Internet slang terms are slowly creeping into modern-day non-virtual conversations.
Although this is a relatively minor and uncommon example, it does show just how
easily blind communication can infiltrate into real life face to face communication.

A lonely future?

If we project the trend of blind communication forwards into the future and assume
that it continues, what sort of society will we be looking at in 20-30 years?

Technological advances speed up the rate of societal change. With this change comes
new challenges that we must all face.
If the current generation of children spend most of their day watching TV and playing
computer games, how will they be able to communicate effectively with others when
they grow up?
And if they are unable to communicate effectively, how will they form lasting and
meaningful relationships with people? Will these people be able to attract members of
the opposite sex? And if so, how long will such relationships last if there is little or no
communication in it?

Although this might all sound a bit alarmist, the warning signs are around us right now
and more and more people are becoming lonely as a result.

The more time you spend interacting with a machine, the less time you spend
interacting with real life human beings.
The only way to overcome this loneliness and prevent the future from becoming a
lonely place for you, is to stop ignoring your feelings or distracting yourself from them.

Instead, you must learn to start listening to, and appropriately responding to, the
messages that your feelings are telling you. This is something which we shall discuss at
the very end of this article.

Technology isn’t evil

Before moving on to how you can deal with loneliness, I want to make it clear that I do
not believe technology is bad. I see technology as being neutral. It is how you use it
that determines whether it’s good or bad.
 Technology can bring both advantages and disadvantages.
I also do not think that it is bad to communicate via the phone, chat online or
participate in forums. This article was not meant to condemn these activities, but
rather, to point out the potential dangers which they can lead to, both for you and
society as a whole.

Occasional blind communication (i.e., communication which does not involve direct face
to face contact) is perfectly fine in moderation.

However, if technology is used as a distractor, and your predominant form of

communication is blind, then your mental and physical health in addition to your social
life will be adversely affected.

So as long as for most of the day you are interacting with people in real life, your risk
of being unable to develop meaningful and lasting relationships will be relatively low.
Studies have shown that people with a wide social network live longer and are healthier
than those with few friends.
But if you spend most of your time interacting with people using a machine, be aware
that your future could be a very lonely one. Why? Because you will lack the required
skills needed to successfully interact with others.

A stereotypical example to demonstrate this can be found with “computer geeks”, who
are stereotyped by their inability to get a girlfriend and their small circle of friends.
 There's nothing wrong with loving technology, as long as it's not the only relationship
you're in.
What really concerns me, however, is the increasing number of people who prefer to
spend time online, or as it is sometimes called “living online”, rather than interacting in
the real world.

If this trend continues, which all indications seem to suggest it will, we could reach a
tipping point in society where face to face interactions become a thing of the past.

If people are not interacting together, then fewer people are going to meet, fall in love
and have children. Eventually this could lead to a progressive depopulation of the
planet.

Although at present this trend would largely be confined to developed countries which
are able to provide their people with plentiful forms of technology, the more advanced
this technology becomes, the greater its uptake is likely to be.
 Dealing With Loneliness

We all get a little lonely sometimes.

Use the following guidelines to help you understand and respond appropriately to your
loneliness.

1) Identify the feeling

Loneliness comes as a result of having little or no meaningful relationships in your life.

You can be lonely because you don’t have many friends, or lonely because you don’t
have a romantic partner.

2) Remember the meaning

Loneliness tells you that you need to find someone who you care about and who cares
about you.

3) Decide why you are feeling lonely

Why is it that you don’t have many friends or a partner in your life? Are you unable to
communicate with other people because you spend most of your time online or
watching TV? Are these activities preventing you from meeting people and making new
friends?
4) Find something to change your feelings

If you want to make new friends, you will have to make an effort to make them.

This means interacting with as many people as possible, and forming close relationships
with them through the activities which you do together. Generally speaking, the less
you interact with people the lonelier you will become.

Summary

Loneliness is an increasingly common by-product of an over reliance on technology,

which is itself used as a remedy for the problem that it created.

The more time you spend creating virtual relationships, or distracting yourself from
your loneliness with entertainment, the harder you will find it to make meaningful and
lasting relationships in the real world.

This inability to form relationships will then lead to more painful feelings of loneliness,
addictions to distractors (technology), frustration and eventually depression.

- See more at: http://www.eruptingmind.com/does-technology-make-you-lonely/#sthash.H9YIvTRr.dpuf

With nearly every moment of our lives captured by camera phone, documented and shared on social
networks, and borderless discussions abounding on blogs and comments forums, we appear to live
in a time of unprecedented communication and connectivity.

But why do so many of us feel alone? According to recent surveys, nearly 20 per cent of Americans
report that they feel very isolated. This isn't surprising to writer and social critic Giles Slade, author
of The Big Disconnect: The Story of Technology and Loneliness. He argues that our society has
been growing more distant since the industrial revolution, when people left the "family hearth at
home" to compete for jobs in the big cities. And each technological innovation that has come
since -- the car, the television, the record player, the smart phone -- has been further disconnecting
our communities.

Slade says he began seriously thinking about this after travelling through the Middle East and
returning back to North America. The experience of going from bustling marketplaces to the efficient,
but sterile kiosks and sales desks, really jarred him.

"I was really struck by the interpersonal coldness of North America, as opposed to countries in the
Arab world where the exchange of goods -- every exchange, every interaction -- is really an
occasion to encounter a new human being and enjoy a relationship with them. So this game of
bargaining that they play, you know for pennies, is really just an excuse to develop a relationship
between the seller and the buyer."

With each technological development, we gained convenience and efficiency, but often at the cost of
social interaction. Before cars became widely affordable, people relied on walking, streetcars or
trains for transportation, which presented ample opportunity to form relationships with people you'd
likely see often on your commute. Before televisions were in every home, people went to theatres or
live events for their entertainment. Another fascinating example of how technology has affected our
socialization is how we enjoy music.
Music has been a connecting force for centuries. Slade says that 150 years ago, it was very
common for people in North America and Europe to collectively sing in the workplaces. Fisherman
had sea shanties. Cotton mill workers had their own tunes. American blues has its roots in the work
songs and spirituals of Africa-American workers during slave times. People would attend live music
shows, dance, and be a part of the festivities.

But then the phonograph made it possible to listen to music in the privacy of one's own home. And
then headphones allowed individuals to listen to music completely by themselves. Then, portable
devices let people listen to their own music all day long, never sharing the experience. Listening to
music you enjoy, Slade says, is "inherently psychobiochemical" -- the experience of it causes your
brain to release the comfort-inducing hormone oxytocin, the same hormone we feel when we're
bonding with people we love. But while dancing solo to your favourite tune will give you a quick hit,
Slade says we're missing the more satisfying experience of sharing that music or participating with
others.
But what about the mass discussions and connections one can make via Twitter and Facebook?
Don't those count as legitimate community experiences? Sure, Slade says, but this kind of
engagement is more often than not on a fairly shallow level.

"They're your friends until you un-friend them," he argues. "You don't share deep interpersonal
information with them, and they can't satisfy the longing for deep relationships."
It's the latter kind of relationships that Slade is concerned our society is losing -- the people that you
rely on in a time of crises, people you can reach out to, people that can physically be there for you.
And in times of grave consequence (natural disasters, for instance), Slade says that the isolated
individuals in our society -- the ones without close friends to lean on -- will be at the most risk.

"Our survival depends on our ability to connect to other people."

In this age of social networking, you'd wonder how anyone could ever feel lonely.

But the more you use technology to communicate, the lonelier you are likely to be. That's according to a recent
survey conducted by Relationships Australia, a community-based support services organization.

"Forty two per cent of Australians who used an average of four methods of technology to communicate [such
as email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter] were lonely compared with 11 per cent of people who used only one," says
Sue Miller, a manager at Relationships Australia Queensland.

The 2011 results, which come from polling 1204 people over the age of 18, also challenge the idea that elderly
people are society's loneliest.

The data reveal that people aged 25-34 were most likely to frequently feel lonely (27 per cent) and that young
adults aged 18-24 are the second loneliest group; 19 per cent frequently feel lonely. For those over 70 years of
age, the figure was 11 per cent.
 Miller says she was surprised by the results which also showed respondents who indicated they frequently felt
lonely were more likely to use Facebook to communicate with friends, family and potential partners (54 per
cent) than respondents who infrequently (39 per cent) and respondents who never (28 per cent) felt lonely.

"What we don't know is which came first: was it that they felt lonely and they used technology as a means to
lessen their loneliness; or are they using more social media and that is increasing their loneliness?" explains
Miller. "We now want to look at that question in more detail."

The online/offline balancing act

There's no doubt that technology can bring positives to our relationships – just think how many people today
meet their partners online.

When the Relationships Australia survey asked respondents whether they believed social networking had a
positive impact on relationships 54 per cent of those aged 18-24 said it did (although this figure decreased as
the age of the respondents increased).

But mixed with this positivity is a worry that virtual communication – whether it's via social networks or SMS – is
no match for a face-to-face get-together.

"The quality of online communication is impoverished in comparison with the physical, real world face-to-face
communication," says Dr Catriona Morrison, an experimental psychologist at the University of Leeds in England
who has studied the link between depression and internet addiction.

"You often don't hear someone's voice and you don't see any body signals, which we know from traditional
psychology are important."

Morrison's observations are mirrored in the Relationships Australia survey, where respondents listed having
less face-to-face contact and spending time on the computer at the expense of being with other people among
the main ways social networking can harm relationships.

Morrison says it's important to be aware of how much time you are spending online.

"It's like any addictive behaviour ... where you have feelings of a loss of control, where you [are] going online for
many more hours than you intend and you are replacing face-to-face relationships with online relationships,"
Morrison says.

"That's where the problems occur."

As to whether loneliness drives people to the internet or whether the internet and social media lends itself to
behaviours that lead to loneliness, Morrison says that, in all likelihood, it's probably a bit of both.

Only the lonely: how loneliness can affect our health

Feeling lonely on occasion is not uncommon – some might say it's part and parcel of being human – so why
should we be worried about it?

Well, chronic loneliness can lead to an array of health problems that include anxiety disorders, depression, and
substance abuse. It's also a risk factor for cancer and cardiovascular disease.

While it has been known for many years that people who are socially-isolated have poorer immune systems
than those who are 'connected,' only in the last few years has the biological mechanism that explains the link
between loneliness and ill health been determined.

This group of people also have increased levels of hormones, such as cortisol, a stress hormone. It now
appears that these hormones alter gene expression in immune cells, which compromises the body's ability to
fight infection and contain inflammation.

Interestingly, physically being with others can lead to a release of the 'feel good' hormone oxytocin, which is an
anti-inflammatory.
 The US authors of a study, published last year in PLoS Medicine, say the negative effect of loneliness on
people's wellbeing is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic and that it exceeds the
effects of no exercise or obesity.

The analysis, which was based on 148 independent studies that measured frequency of human interaction and
tracked health outcomes for an average of seven and a half years, also found social connections – friends,
family, neighbors or colleagues – improved the odds of survival by 50 per cent.

And it's worth remembering that loneliness isn't the same as being alone.

In the '70s, psychologist Robert Weiss penned a definition of loneliness that is still used today: Loneliness is a
distressing mental state where an individual feels estranged from or rejected by peers and is starved for the
emotional intimacy found in relationships and mutual activity.

Combating loneliness
For the vast majority of us, the internet can help us to function better in our increasingly global world – but
Morrison says we just mustn't lose touch with the physical community around us, and the people in it.

"While it's nice to be in touch with your cousin in England over Facebook, that can't replace a more intimate
face-to-face relationship... you need to balance this with relationships within the community you are actually
living in," she says.

Whether you're an avid social networker or you prefer an old-fashioned face-to-face meeting with friends, all of
us can feel lonely from time to time. UK mental health charity MIND has some advice:

 If you are out of practice at meeting people take small steps. Make the most of all chances for social
contact, whether it's speaking to the local shopkeeper or responding to a fellow bus passenger who
strikes up a conversation.
 Join a class or find an interest group. Getting to know new people can be part of the learning process in a
new class. Whether you enjoy country walks or going to the cinema there's bound to be an interest group
in your area where you can meet like-minded people.

 It may be necessary to seek professional help. Small group counselling sessions or one-on-one sessions
with a counsellor may be useful.

More info
 Relationships Australia: Relationships Indicator Survey 2011
 MIND UK: How to cope with loneliness

 Loneliness: breaking the taboo - All in the Mind, ABC Radio National, 12/11/2011

email a friendemail ABC Health & Wellbeing

 (20 comments)
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Comments for this story are closed. No new comments can be added.

 Clare Mann :

03 Nov 2011 3:41:18pm

Technology certainly has the potential to leave us feeling lonely and disconnected unless we understand its
true purpose - conveying information and making connections from which to form relationships from which
true collaboration is possible. 

Communicating by technology has the potential to ignore the human element of how relationships are really
 built. Without face to face contact, there is no non-verbal information that normally informs of the intention,
emotions, values of the speaker. Without this we are left to fill in the gaps of what people 'actually' mean
rather than what we project onto the message. Emails, mobile phones, texts and social media are valuable
methods of communicating information. Beyond that we need to meet with people face to face so that we
can truly connect. Without it, we can be left lonely without others truly understanding us. 

Clare Mann

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 Joe :

03 Nov 2011 4:52:02pm

It's funny. A lot of the messenger programs have webcam support these days, and yet people such as
myself often prefer not to use them, even though they provide better visual feedback. As you use text more
you develop a better feel for the intonation of the text and use cues such as response time for reading
peoples behavior. Maybe people are using the computer for other things while messaging and the webcam
is just a distraction.

Alert moderator

 Peter R :

03 Nov 2011 7:42:14pm

I agree. I read the state of mind of my friends' emails as well as the stuff they are writing about.

I have almost no face to face social life - I am an introvert and I find it highly stressful and exhausting. I
simply don't want it - and like Joe I don't want webcam videolink. I'm quite happy emailing my friends, most
of whom are very far away, and reading theirs in turn.

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 Urien Rakarth :

04 Nov 2011 11:22:47am

I'm the same, Peter. I like keeping distance with people and facebook, emailing and texting allows me to
determine how close I want people to be with me.

Alert moderator

 TheNomad :

04 Nov 2011 11:21:23am

Before social media and even e-mails came on the scene, articles and TV programs were saying that
loneliness was increasing in the working population. So it seems that the lifestyle during the 80's and the
90's was already responsible for the increase in the feeling of loneliness. Then I think it was blamed on
increased commuting time, and increased competition in the workplace (hence less socialising with
colleagues). 
So it looks as if the lonely social media users would be even lonelier without social media.

Alert moderator
 gerard1 :

04 Nov 2011 12:24:49pm

My personal life situation has made me lonely. I have a sick wife and a demanding stressful job.
My contact wih the outside world takes place during 15 minutes in the morning as I eat my breakfast and
after work when the animals have been fed I spend half an hour on Tribe, Facebook and Gmail. I get to
know where those who I've had contact with (real friends would come visit) are up to and throw in a
comment here and there to keep myself active emotionally. Lonely as hell, but that small contact keeps me
sane.

Alert moderator

 Anderson :

04 Nov 2011 2:53:07pm

The feeling of isolation isn't new, nor is assuming it is a new thing to be attributed to some recent cause. 

Folks have been saying that people feel isolated nowadays for a long time. When I was growing up people
said the same thing about city living. 

Technology lets us communicate over the internet with distant people, but we lack their presence close by.
How is that any different to a phone call? Or exchanging letters with a pen-pal?

I think the heart of the matter is that we're social creatures and that means sometimes we feel lonely.

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 rainbow :

04 Nov 2011 3:19:58pm

When I was younger, and socially awkward and shy and generally reclusive, things like MSN messenger
were a way of talking without the human element - it was great. Now though, feeling more socially
acclimatised, I'd rather disconnect from the net and search out real human interaction. 

The social element of technology seems an add-on to justify everyone having them (computers, i phones
whatever). 

And I know the line, oh Facebook is great with people that live overseas, and email, and all of it. But in a
way, it allows people - no matter how close or far - to remain distant because of the illusion of connectivity. I
no longer have facebook, and generally I am less aware of what is going on, yet I appreciate the actual
human contact I get. Which diminishes more and more as the headsetted have come to predominate.

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 Len Heggarty :

07 Nov 2011 11:44:06am

The more you interact with technology the more inhuman you become. The computer teaches us to be like a
computer, unfeeling.
Who has empathy for other people these days? Not many.
We don't talk to people face to face. We talk about people via the internet and technology. That means we
are "safe". And being 'safe' we lie and tell lies and exaggerate and hurt other people. 
 Who would do that face to face over a coffee while looking into the face of the person we are talking to. We
are meant to be face to face with people, upfront and honest.
Social media is a total sham. It is a horror. It teaches us to release us from humanity and become beasts
and attack. And of course in return people attack us.

Alert moderator

 L.A. :

06 May 2013 6:28:15pm

Touché Len Heggarty, people feel "safe" communicating by texts without face to face contact. But it is not all
that bad, as it helped shy people to interact with others if they didn´t have this means of communication they
would simply opt not to communicate.

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 gcollins :

08 Nov 2011 11:21:05am

I belive that the question you pose are one and the same: people use technology to alleviate loneliness,
however the disconnection from real human contact can be detrimental to happiness. Technology is no
substitute for human contact and it is only people who use technology in this way who become truly lonely. It
is not necessarily the use of technology that is causal here, it is more likely the stimulation of a new and
modern form of addiction and compulsive behaviour leading to increased anxiety. There is only one cure ...
stop using it.

Alert moderator

 DB2 :

08 Nov 2011 3:39:18pm

The article focusses on the disadvantages of electronic communication. There are advantages over face-to-
face contact as well. Just like in an old fashioned letter or email, recipients read messages from start to
finish and in that way know each others minds better than they would if they were allowed to interrupt or talk
over each other. Perhaps this explains why the internet is a surprisingly effective matchmaker, just like the
love-letters of old perhaps.

Alert moderator

 Peter :

08 Nov 2011 8:49:08pm

I'm just wondering if the conclusions biased on their survey are correct. The facts seem to be:
Younger people report as more lonely than older people.. 
Younger people use social media more than older people..

Is it possible that younger people would report as being lonelier regardless of their usage of social media? 

I've got to admit that I felt lonelier when I was 25 than I do now at 45... I think I had more friends when I was
younger, and there was no internet. Not a decent sample I know, but it does beg the question. I would like to
see if the results are controlled for the usage of social media against age what results we would get.
 Alert moderator

 Charlie :

11 Nov 2011 1:26:36am

yes. it's just your regular meaningless abuse of statistics with a bit of narrative. how about controlling for age
- amongst 30ish year olds, are those who use more social media lonelier? I doubt it, so doesn't make for an
interesting story.

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 Melissza :

15 Nov 2011 2:41:25am

I was thinking the exact same thing. There are statistical methods for teasing apart these explanations, but
it's not clear here whether they have been used. I imagine it would be hard to find a large enough number of
younger people who use only one form of electronic communication for the results to be reliable.

Alert moderator

 pinkmini :

09 Nov 2011 6:13:27pm

Wow! The comments here are wonderful. The teenagers I know think they are 'popular' and certainly not
lonely because of the amount of people they text and know on Facebook. I think they are kidding
themselves!

Alert moderator

 anon :

20 Nov 2011 10:53:13am

Wow, it was very telling for me to read Weiss's definition of loneliness as it described exactly a situation I
have been wrestleing with for some time. 

I am 30, I spend at least an hour a day on facebook and much more on other sites and I wrestle with intense
feelings of loneleness on a daily basis. 

I would be reluctant to simply say one caused the other. I returned from time overseas to a find my
friendship groups had disappated as people started to have kids, get married etc and concentrate on
demanding careers. 

I often have only one social engagement a week with the rest of my time spend either working or pretty
much on social networking.

I am in a long distance relationship which is by necessity entirely mediated by the internet. And on days
when there is a lag or connection breakgdown it is very distressing.

Alert moderator
  the pulse :

01 Feb 2012 4:43:22pm

Its horrible to know that its separating to a couple who was once connected to just each other until electronic
communication arrived into our home! its been like this for years now, being put on the shelf for a while until
the there was nothing left for him to do with the internet not only by means of communication but by
pornographic images etc.. its sad even today still i still soldier on wondering when will i be included again,we
have 3 beautiful children and the youngest is 2 ,I am feeling so ugly and unappreeciated by all of this
technology which is by no means keeping families together but tearing them apart !marg

Alert moderator

 Fleurina :

02 Feb 2012 6:45:13pm

I manage an online support group. The other members are the only people who "get" the problem. Without
this daily contact, I would feel even more isolated.

Alert moderator

 Cheryl :

30 Jun 2013 8:11:34pm

Technology is nothing but a tool to deliver content - when and how we use it is our responsibility.

Alert moderator

We have seen a rash of essays and articles in the mainstream press recently
that take a somewhat scare-mongering tone toward social networks and
digital communication of various kinds: a piece in the Atlanticraised the
question of whether Facebook is making us lonely, and a New York Times op-
ed by MIT professor Sherry Turkle a few days ago argues that all the texting
and social-media usage we’re engaging in is bad for us as a society, because
it is preventing us from having “real” conversations and connecting with other
human beings. But is this a real problem or just another example of how new
technologies often get blamed for behavior that existed long before they were
invented?

The crux of Turkle’s argument is that while text messaging, Facebook status
updates and Twitter messages may make us feel as though we are connected
to our friends and family in small ways, these “sips” of online connectivity don’t
add up to much. It’s similar to the case she made in her book Alone Together:
Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, in which
she talked about how social networks like Facebook are actually keeping us at
a distance from one another, instead of helping to connect us. As she puts it
in her NYT piece:

We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet

we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection. E-mail, Twitter, Facebook, all
of these have their places — in politics, commerce, romance and friendship. But no
matter how valuable, they do not substitute for conversation.

But is that really true? There’s no question that a Facebook or Twitter chat
can’t substitute for a face-to-face conversation with someone you care about.
But is anyone really saying it should? It feels as though Turkle is proposing a
false dichotomy, as though all the online communication we engage in
somehow takes the place of “real-world” conversation. It’s like an updated
version of the old image of young people sitting alone in their basements
playing video games instead of going out to meet their friends in the “real”
world. (Susannah Fox has a nice roundup of some reactions to Turkle’s
piece.)

Those who are social online tend to be

social offline
This argument has a number of flaws, however,including the fact that
research shows people — particularly young Internet users — who are more
social in their use of online networks and tools are also more social in the
offline world. Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci has written about this false
dichotomy many times,including during an exchange with former New York
Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, who echoed Turkle’s fear that online
connections are a pale imitation of “real” human connections. Tufekci argues
the online world and the so-called real world are almost indistinguishable now,
and in many cases they tend to support each other rather than the opposite.

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In his recent piece in the Atlantic, author Stephen Marche asked whether

Facebook was making us more lonely instead of less, and ultimately he
seemed to come down on the “more lonely” side of the equation, saying:

In a world consumed by ever more novel modes of socializing, we have less and less
actual society. We live in an accelerating contradiction: the more connected we
become, the lonelier we are. We were promised a global village; instead we inhabit
the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information.

As poetic as that sounds, however, it simply doesn’t appear to be the case.

Even the “expert on loneliness” who is cited by Marche in
the Atlantic piecedoesn’t agree we are becoming lonelier, and there’s no real
evidence to suggest Facebook is helping or hurting in that regard. As with
Turkle’s analysis, Marche seems convinced that social networking, text
messaging or various other forms of online connection are replacing real
communication between people, but at least in my experience — and also in
the research of others such as Tufekci — that isn’t really what’s happening at
all.