Runaway Future

It’s been many months since I had the original conversation that planted the seed for this entry, but if anything, the main idea behind it all rings truer now then ever before.

Back in April, I was at the old place on Carleton Street talking with my former housemates about Facebook, among other things. Like most people, I got a Facebook account on a whim and slowly but surely got sucked further and further into it. Checking out pictures, seeing what people I know are up to, seeing what’s going on, looking for hot girls that I can have awkward conversation with. It could even be considered ironic that this will be auto-fed onto Facebook from my website.

However, the technology is coming at a cost. I had my birthday a month ago, and save for the family that called and the friends that came to K-Murf, no one actually said Happy Birthday to me. Now that might seem petty, but bear with me. Sure, I had a good two dozen people post on the Facebook wall, but it’s communication without talking, ringing hollow. Why “waste” that extra effort to talk to your friends and see what people are up to, when in three clicks, I can go to their profile and learn all about them and their news. Obviously, there’s still the close friends, but those a little farther out, maybe the ones you don’t see as often as you should, they are the ones who suffer from this distance we’re all erecting.

It’s been almost 15 years since I was first introduced to the Internet. Before then, and even for the first little while afterwards, I would still make phone calls, write letters and so on. Slowly but surely, those forms of communication are being phased out. I use MSN and Facebook much more then my cellphone, I don’t know when the last time I wrote a hand-written letter. I feel disconnected when I go to my parents’ place and they have a dialup connection that I don’t use and a phone number that barely any of my friends know. Sometimes that’s a good thing to be away.

I assume this same debate was raised when phones were first introduced and again when email gained popularity. But now, as technology continues to encroach on our day to day lives, the personal touch is lost.

And it’s only going to continue at this pace. Someday, probably within the next ten years, we’ll have one object, integrating all forms of communication into a single platform, phone, email, text, instant message, your business life, your personal life, your finances. It’s very close already with the rise of the Blackberry. Soon, everything we will do won’t exist at all, except electronically.

Before I sound too much like a Luddite, keep in mind that I’m just as dependent as anyone else. I wouldn’t be employed in either job I have if it weren’t for computers, I spend just as much time scaring at flickering screens as anyone else. But it’s making me wonder if it’s all worth it.

As a sign of thanks, I made an effort to call Daniel, my former Carleton Street housemate on his birthday back in April. For one reason or another, I was busy that day and couldn’t make it over to wish him a proper happy birthday, but still a phone call, a voice, means so much more then words on a screen.