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.