Digitalizing Human Interaction

This was a scrap of writing I've found in my documents referencing many of the "experience cheapened by immediacy"points. It may perhaps be overly cynical, though I suppose it is in line with many of my posts from this time period.

"The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate." Joseph Priestly

"Electronic communication is an instantaneous and illusory contact that creates a sense of intimacy without the emotional investment that leads to close friendships." Clifford Stoll

These are both really interesting quotes, the first I heard years ago, though I really didn’t understand it then. The second I’ve found only recently though it is remarkably eloquent in voicing an idea I’ve, as of yet, been unable to.

It is an idea that Kittler talked about in Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Klosterman has also spoken on this topic when addressing Twitter on a radio show, and it was a major theme in my term paper.  The idea is a simple one. All technology, all media, detract from our connection with life. They detract from the processes that make up life. It's the little things that constitute the experience, and we're delegating the little things to technology.

It's like having an assistant that does your work for you; it takes away from what you experience. It takes away from the experience itself.

With things like email and social networking sites people have the ability to contact each other, though for the most part we seldom do. The attitude is: "I have 800 Facebook friends, 12 of whom I actually talk to, 2 of which I see in the real world." Talking on Facebook, texting, emailing etc. detracts from the experience of talking to a person in person. Just as the answering machine even the phone, to a somewhat lesser extent, does this.

The reason is something I touched on in my term paper recently. It's the idea that when we are not present in a conversation physically, we lose the nuances of conversation. The inflection and body language. Although also because these media are not two-way the other person has as long as they want to filter their response before they respond. You no longer get an honest sense of their personality.

The more connected we are to people digitally, the less connected to them we are personally. We diverge, we use technology as a go between so that we don't have to really be there, talk to them, experience the conversation. We have become a third party to the whole process.

Technology detracts from our connection with life because it cheapens the process, and removes the need to experience. Just as these new means of communication and social networking are digitalizing human interaction.