Apologies for the radio silence - I've been on vacation. This time, I actually tried to stay away from the internet while away. My online withdrawal period actually went though several distinct psychological stages. (And yes, I know such stages don't actually exist.) At first, I experienced a weird, existential anxiety - what if the world was about to end, or some cataclysm just occurred, and I didn't know about it? Shouldn't I peek at the Drudge? Then came acceptance: I was merely vacationing in the world circa 2002, before smartphones and twitter and online news alerts. I made it through 2002, didn't I? Finally, there was euphoria, the sweet release of not being tethered to a virtual universe of email, political blogs and google. Alas, no sooner had I achieved a Thoreau-style acceptance of life in the wilderness then my vacation was over. And so here I am.
Needless to say, there is something very ironic about the way we've come to define "disconnected". For the first few days of my vacation, I felt "disconnected" from the world, solely because I wasn't checking my inbox every five minutes. But this connection is entirely virtual! What we've forgotten is that being "connected" to the online universe comes with a cost: we're actually more disconnected from the actual world. We're not noticing our surroundings because we're busy tapping out a text, or worrying about that unanswered email, or fretting over the latest Ohio poll numbers. We're "connected," but connected to what?
Humanities & Social Science
Comments (7)
Welcome back! Hope you took your own advice and while exercising self control and not responding to the urge to go online, you were able to relax body and mind and come up with some good insights about future writing projects. I'm off to xerox the "Eureka Hunt" article and some word Jumbles for a "Back To Square One" talk tonight. Thanks for the two offerings today!
Posted by: jb | October 23, 2008 12:59 PM