Talk
about a huge mistake and a brilliant learning experience. Funny how those two
go hand-in-hand almost without exception. For years now, we’ve been hearing the
stories of how technology makes us lazy, desensitized, anti-social, stupid,
etc., and as millennials, we typically say “fuck you, you don’t know what
you’re talking about.” With the power of a smartphone and google at our
fingertips, we would rebut that technology makes us efficient, aware,
connected, and all knowing. Perhaps we’re right. Or maybe we’re just
over-zealous, teenage-minded, charlatans, taking the easy way out whenever
possible. After one hell-ish month and plenty of time to reflect, I have a
short anecdote that ought to make you wonder: perhaps we are getting lazy,
desensitized, anti-social, and stupid.
Many, I’m
sure, are aware of the iPhone’s mystical capability to take an abbreviation and
expand it into full text. All you have to do is invest 3 minutes to save a few
keyboard shortcuts, and all of a sudden, boom! When you type “ihw” it gets
expanded to “I hope everything is going well with you.” At first glance, this
is fantastic – the best thing since sliced bread, one might even claim. And
that’s all the thought you usually give it – just a first glance... And that right
there is already a huge problem: we don’t even pause to think about how
technology makes our lives less meaningful. Yes, I said less.
Apple’s enthralling launch events, TechCrunch’s reviews, USA Today’s articles,
tech-savvy blog posts... the list goes on, but all these sources send one
message and one message only: “technology is awesome.” I don’t disagree;
technology is awesome – in fact, I’m a tech-guy myself. The message is not wrong,
no; the message is incomplete. The message lacks a crucial counterpoint, like a
Yin without a Yang or peanut butter without jelly. “Technology is awesome;
technology is dangerous.” Dangerous, not necessarily in the sense that it will
physically harm you (though that may be an issue as well), but dangerous in the
sense that technology can easily propagate laziness, desensitization,
anti-socialness, and stupidity. Anyways, back to the story.
“I hope everything is going well with you.” First of all, that
means something. When I say that to someone, I mean something by it: “I care
enough about you to say that I hope your world hasn’t completely fallen apart.”
“ihw,” on the other hand, means nothing to anybody. It conveys no emotions, no
concern, no meaningful communication, nothing. And that nothingness is exactly
what is conveyed when I type in “ihw” and it expands and sends to a friend or
loved one. I am lazy to type an extra 15 characters; I
am desensitized by not even speaking English; I am anti-social by
communicating in a way people cannot understand and respond to; and I am stupid to
think that all this is okay or just ignorant not to think of it in the first
place.
When we communicate in person, most of the communication is not in the
words we use, but the way we stand, the tone we’re using, what we do with our
hands, where we’re looking, etc. Naturally, much of this is lost through
electronic communication and that’s understandable, but what I failed to
realize is that these queues are not only important to the person we’re
communicating with, they are important to us. When I look someone in the eye
and tell him or her I care about what’s going on, the gesture of looking that
person in the eye is equally important to both me and him or her. The way I
stand is equally important to both of us. The hand gestures I use are equally important to
both of us. The energy we bring to an interaction is equally important to
both of us. Now, translate this to an electronic communication. Sure, the
person receiving the text can’t see my hand gestures, but the energy (or lack
thereof) that I put into a message is what matters. If I type “ihw,” and it
expands and sends effortlessly like iOS has designed, I clearly couldn’t care
less whether the person I’m sending the message to is doing well or not.
Perhaps that person picks up on my lack of concern or perhaps not, but what
matters is that I just devalued my own relationship with that person. I did not
care enough to give the time and energy he or she deserved. Why does this
matter? You tell me; it’s different for everyone. To some people it doesn’t
matter at all– they’re used to keeping people at arm’s length and prefer not to
actually care. To me, it meant that I push people away that care. It means I
“say” things but forget to mean them. It means I type “ilu” and it expands to
“I love you”... but, it means nothing more than what it is: “ilu.”
