The older generation is observing the insular habits of the today’s teenagers with skepticism. It should drive us to rethink our lifestyles and dependence on technology which, unfortunately, is being blindly adopted at the cost of human relationships. A rot that started half a century ago, our manner of embracing scientific advances has brought in problems not merely of degree but also of kind.
Habits Die Hard
Alvin Toffler, two generations ago, while linking human habits with material goods said they determine how we will behave with people as well. That is, discarding what we use makes us habitual discarders, even of human relationships. Most modernists are willing to treat this only as an interesting tidbit, however, is today’s society truly starting to reflect that?
Use-and-Throw
In recent decades, mass production allowed for the production of cheaper consumer durables with a shorter life, compensated by an attractive price tag. Aside from these, use-and-throw articles are now a part of our life, an obvious example being the Styrofoam cup that is consigned to the bin after one use. Do we ‘repeat this behavior’ with human beings?
Chinese electronic products with a limited life are abundantly stocked by shopkeepers and enthusiastically purchased by consumers since they are regarded as value for money in a fast changing world. So, do we lose touch with old friends only because we think we can make new ones easily?
Conveniently Temporary
Recently, human relationships too have been rendered temporary, a convenience for all concerned — the most obvious is of the man and the woman, traditionally expected to consummate by matrimony. Well, starting from the Swinging Sixties, this institution has been strained, with divorce rates spiraling. We’ve transitioned through the stage of live-in couples to the common law spouse relationship which provides rights almost equal to matrimony, including alimony and palimony, but at the same time shun permanence.
The Materialistic Change
Speaking of social changes, the 1960s had a liberal feel related to a ‘release of tension’ after the horrific World War II a decade and a half earlier, but don’t forget that invention fever during the war, along with mass military production, provided the fillip for a similar scale of consumer durables’ production later. It led to the creation of arguably the first materialistic society of modern times — with large volumes being produced, it was possible to make them more affordable and now a population that had experienced the frugality of the war binged on purchases. Besides the social change to materialism, a second one would follow, when people would learn to quickly discard these products for newer ones, come as they did much cheaper than ever before. Here would start a culture of discarding.
Rise of the Machines
Jumping ahead about 45 years, to the decade of the ‘noughties’ (2000s), another type of mass production further pushed the insularity of human society, this one involving nanotechnology. It represented a mini revolution in which consumer products shrunk to a fraction of their size while taking centre stage in everyday life; iPods, mobile phones and laptop computers had not just arrived but been embraced wholly. They would be considered ubiquitous, meaning that you apparently couldn’t function without them. Work and leisure were now possible without being in the company of others.
Social Life
While social networking websites, as an example, tend to be portrayed as among the better uses of technology to revive human relationships or even enhance them, they ironically represent the ‘socialization’ where nobody meets anybody in real life. Therefore, they create the image of being “connected,” which is just enough to temporarily douse the need for being among people.
Early Days
Even the first ‘machines’ created fissures in our social structure — at the time of the Industrial Revolution in England in the 1700s, many boys from the villages went to live and work in the factories in cities for better pay. Sons had so far never lived away from their fathers and it created social tensions and a seemingly ‘fatherless’ generation.
While this may seem in hindsight a necessary social restructuring and one that we seem to have adapted well to — nowadays sons and daughters leave home by age 18 to either study at university, work or merely to be independent — bear in mind that it has already represented an unnatural change. As ever, humans are ever willing to push change, satisfied that their first experiments have been successes or that benefits outweigh the downside.
The Future Generation
While nobody remembers society as it was three hundred years ago, Gen-next today definitely shows another kind of social chaos that may be around the corner, its individualistic youth brimming with the confidence of their gadgets. Seemingly with little care about others in their surroundings, they are either always talking into their cellphones or listening to music on the go. Can human ‘society’ truly mutate into one where the term itself becomes defunct? After all, a society denotes a collection of groups and individuals, pooling in their thoughts and agreeing upon a code for co-existence.
Communication Breakdown
Yes, the world around us has always witnessed successful changes, however, it is futile to imagine that people do not need continuous dialogue to adapt correctly — there exists now a real fear of this communication process breaking down and us turning into a ‘ghost society.’ Among other problems, the developed world has already witnessed many mass shootings in schools, carried out by disturbed and isolated individuals pining for attention. The attempted assassination of US president Ronald Reagan in the ‘80s is another example where the perpetrator merely wanted to become famous.
Sure, the gadgets we invented will help us communicate crisply when we really want to but mustn’t society take the form where we remain closer and watch out for disturbing trends? Being ‘excellent judges in hindsight,’ we may regret our current lack of restraint when we see the devastating results. Is now the time to change our children’s habits?
‘Co-Existence’ an Oxymoron?
Passionate modernists argue that our electronic devices actually create a peaceful society because individuals “do their own thing” and don’t heckle others needlessly. Of course, that’s partially true, but is it really possible to sustain plain ‘existence’ instead of ‘co-existence?’ If so, then co-existence was a reality only of the old world. How?
Take, for example, the hunter gatherer humans a million years ago— they ‘co-existed’ in the truest sense, because they stayed together to hunt down big beasts that would have threatened them as individuals. Their descendants later formed the first agrarian society.
At the outset, people would fight among other things for the best tract of land to grow their crops. Here, an order was required so that fighting for land, possessions and rights did not become an everyday affair. A code would be set on the lines of ‘thou shalt not covet another’s land but make the best of one’s own,’ another example of co-existence.
Changes to Make
What conclusions can we draw? That we should distance ourselves from our machines and gadgets a little more if only so it creates more time to spend in the company of others. Technology was meant to make our lives easier, not to augment our incomes disproportionately or turn money-raking into a habit for life. Clacking away at our laptops late into the night, we are unfortunately treading the wrong path, sometimes using the excuse that future inflation has to be countered by making more money now.
Modern gadgets like mobile phones iPods are meant to give us necessary access to communication and relief but not to lose ourselves in. An example of the proper use of the mobile phone is to convey to your family members or friends that you’ll be arriving late because of excessive traffic on the road. No more, because any extension of the conversation can be had face to face. An American president said in the very early days of the colony’s formation, “Give us the tools and we shall do the job.” Now that we have the glamorous ‘tools,’ do we cling to them far more than to human relationships?
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Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in September, 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.
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—About our writer:
Vikram Afzulpurkar is a freelance writer who writes on a variety of topics, including lifestyle, restaurants, travel and sports. He has worked as a content writer for several organisations and is a specialist writer with an Indian Premier League cricket franchise. Having spent several years in the instructional design field for e-learning companies, Vikram has also managed soft skills training in renowned BPOs. Currently, he is based in Bangalore.
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