Face(book)it: We’re Twittering our days away
The animated film "WALL-E" depicts a bleak future for humans.
During my 9-to-5 life, I do communications for a research institute. This week, I had to prepare a presentation for some of our board members as a way of introducing my ideas for a new campaign.
I opened PowerPoint and did a snazzy 18-slide show with my ideas. Some of the slides were about our new Facebook, YouTube and Twitter marketing. The oldest board member uses all three, which was an indication of just how widespread these tools are.
Think about it: Every detail of our lives can be posted on Facebook, our goofy moments end up on YouTube and Twitter lets everyone who follows us know when we’ve finished our morning coffee. The millions of YouTube hits for Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent in a matter of days is a sign that technology is making us a very small global village. Ironically, we can all look at the same video globally and yet never talk to our next-door neighbors.
I have to admit that I use YouTube as my personal jukebox. When I’m in the mood to hear Charles Aznavour, I can log in and call up his stunning performance of “She” in Carnegie Hall. It always puts me in a better mood.
Another clip in my favorites is from Will Ferrell’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The dimwit news reader accidentally pelts a biker with a burrito and the biker punts the anchorman’s pooch over an expressway as payback. (Trust me, it’s very funny and very harmless. The biker is Jack Black and Baxter, the dog he kicks, is obviously a stuffed animal as he’s plummeting from the overpass.) When I need a little jolt of laughter, I can watch Baxter sail over the guardrail.
Sometimes you need a shot of Aznavour and sometimes you need Baxter sailing over the expressway to make your day.
Technology is a fine thing and I love nothing more than to learn to use a new gadget or a new medium. I am concerned about the very young or the very lonely who use these tools as substitutes for human interaction. We are becoming a nation of tuned-in people who have tuned out of empathetic, one-on-one relationships.
My twins are of the opinion that text messaging is more personal than phone calls. After all, they are the first generation that has made this mode of communication theirs. Those of us who are older can’t understand how they can prefer terse, misspelled words from phone to phone over hearing someone’s voice on the other end. (Our great-grandparents probably thought the same about the advent of the telephone versus just visiting someone.)
On Facebook, you can poke a friend by sending a quick message. I found out that my oldest daughter had cut her foot and gotten six stitches when I saw it on Facebook. She was going to call me after posting her news, but I saw the post first.
Twitter keeps those who follow you up on any detail you choose to share–in 140 characters or less. Most of the messages I receive run along the “having a vanilla shake right now” trajectory. There are only a few people I follow from my phone; I read everyone else’s updates on the Web. I would Twitter my day away on insignificant matters if I allowed every tweet to make its way to my phone.
How much time do we spend on technology and how much time do we spend reaching out to others with our undivided attention, a hug or a handshake? Humans are social animals and, without socialization, we become feral beings.
In the animated film WALL-E, our planet has been stripped of life and humans live in space stations where all of their needs are taken care of. They’re obese and overly dependent on technology and entertainment. You can watch WALL-E with your children and be entertained (the little robot is darned cute) or you can ask yourself how much of its techno-barrenness is at work in our lives now.
I’m just as guilty as everyone else when it comes to relying on technology. I send e-cards and emails more often that I visit those I love. Our lives are busy, I know. Still, we should make time for a little glimmer of human contact to induce us to take a break from beeping, buzzing things in the virtual world. An unexpected benefit of attending Mass is that everyone is asked to turn off electronic devices and concentrate on paying homage to God for an hour on Sunday.
Instead of a tweet or a poke or a text, reach out to someone you love in real time, face to face. Tell that someone that he or she matters to you–and mean it. It will mean more than an e-card, I promise.
