The Age of (Dis)Connection

Certainly I am not the only blogger to note, with some degree of consternation, the increasing level of disconnect in our society. This was especially well demonstrated last week here in Washington, DC, where a man was found dead on a Metro train about five hours after he died, after the train had gone out of commission and was in the rail yard. As Petula Dvorak pointed out in her recent column in the Washington Post, no doubt hundreds of people passed him on the train without bothering to notice if he was still breathing, or report something amiss if they did note it. After all, train sleepers are common; why should we wake them?

As someone who rides the Metro or the bus on an almost daily basis, I often fall victim to this phenomenon myself. Though I seldom sleep, being a little paranoid about missing my stop, I am one of many riders who gets on public transportation and, despite being surrounded by people, falls into my own little world. Truth be told it's one of the things I like best about my commute-- the chance to be quietly inside my own head with little disturbance from other people-- but it does raise an interesting question: what human interaction do I sacrifice by spending my commute time in virtual isolation?

It really is *virtual* isolation, too. The people are there-- right next to me, behind me, in front of me-- sometimes too close for comfort (who among us who travels on public transportation has not been in a position where they are crammed together like sardines?). It would be all too easy to communicate and build connections. But instead of being present where we are and reaching out to the people around us, we retreat into our technology. Some people still use older models of "technology," it's true-- you actually do still see quite a few people perusing books and magazines-- but most have headphones in their ears connected to their iPod, or are cruising the Internet on their Blackberry or iPhone, or are immersed in their Kindle. I've even seen some people on the Metro with their laptops out.

Really? Listening to music I can kind of justify (granted, that's largely because I do it), but laptops and Blackberries? We really can't disconnect from work long enough to get home or to the office without needing to pull out our electronic devices to look at one more thing? It goes almost without saying-- clearly we are in an era that is simultaneously the most connected and disconnected in history. That means that we can't get away from work or any other part of our digital lives, and most of the time we don't even want to. Technology is our security blanket that helps us to filter the world down to where we really only let in what we want to. We'll communicate with our friends with various modes of technology and eventually find them in person, but the rest of the world? That's a scary place-- we've got to keep them out.

Leo posted a great piece over at mnmlist.com the other day on "the beauty of a digital vacation," his day off from nearly all technology. I like to take them too every once in a while, although I call them a "digital Sabbath." I feel like I don't take them as often as I should, but it can be great to disconnect from technology and embrace the rest of the world as it comes, just being present where you are. Who knows? If more people took out their headphones and just looked around on the Metro, maybe something could have been done to help Rickey Van Hauten last week. If nothing else, maybe somebody would have noticed that he wasn't breathing before he was discovered in the rail yard.

The Ups and Downs of Google

Full disclosure up front: I'm a huge fan of Google. I have used, to one degree or another, Gmail, Gchat, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Scholar, Google Chrome, and Picasa...and that's aside from the core search engine. I haven't tried a Google-enabled phone, but that is due to my resistance to "smart" phones (more on that another time). And if I had to pick a technology company to take over running the world, and the only choices were Apple and Google, at this point Google would win hands down. All that being said, I will readily admit that like any other technology, Google can both benefit and hurt efforts to simplify.

The benefits are, perhaps, the most obvious. Google creates very smart technology that can be tremendously useful as you attempt to streamline your life. Want a baseline of zero in your email inbox? Gmail's huge memory and "archive" and easy search features ensures that you can remove every message from your main inbox without losing them. Want a more streamlined web browsing experience, without the need for tons of add-ons? Google Chrome offers the capacity to search the web from your URL address box. Enjoy reading tons of news sources and blogs every day? Why click around to all your favorites when you can compile them in Google Reader and view them all in one place? ...You get the point. If you want to streamline much of your computing experience, Google has a lot of technology that can help.

...Or does it? By making condensing and streamlining so easy, Google has also created enormous temptations that work against simplicity. You will almost never need to delete an email because Gmail provides such a large memory for storage (don't be fooled-- 'archiving' and 'deleting' are not the same thing). The ease of skimming in Google Reader means that it is incredibly tempting to just keep adding more and more RSS Feeds. Gchat is a good IM program that will run in your email window as well as on your desktop, but that just makes it distracting in more places...especially the AIM syncing capabilities of the email window. If Google Calendar works well for you as an organizing tool with its ability to send you reminders on your computer and mobile device, mightn't that just give you more motivation to add more events to your life?

Bottom line: Like just about anything else, Google programs are best used in moderation. It is important to find the median where Google is helping you to streamline your life without overly complicating it. Remember to delete those truly unnecessary emails from time to time. Let the blank spaces on your Google Calendar remain blank. Sign out of Gchat and talk to the people around you. Pare down to just the core feeds you love on Google Reader so you aren't overwhelmed, and limit yourself to actually reading no more than a few articles at a time. Google programs can be a tremendous aid to simplification and organization, but only if used appropriately for that purpose, rather than becoming yet another distraction.