How Technology is Ruining the World...

Technology is ruining the world.  Or, more specifically, how we use technology is contributing to the decline of humanness.  Here's why I think so:

I was in a meeting the other day with a man who works closely with seniors who may need to leave their homes soon.  He was telling me a story about an elderly gentleman who just wanted to sell his house and move to a senior community so he could be surrounded by people.  See, this man had seen his share of loss - death of friends, family members, everyone that was close to him.  He lived alone in a house much too large for one person, and wanted more than anything to be with the joys of others.  His children thought otherwise, that he should keep the house and live the rest of his life there.  This is what this man said to me, "He doesn't have anyone and rarely leaves his house.  But....he has email!"

I'm sorry, what?  Suddenly we were speaking as if the notion of email could somehow cure this man's intense loneliness.  Apparently, have access to sending virtual notes every day could fill his void.

We all have them - relationships that don't exist outside the sphere of text messaging, email and social networking sites.  With the advent of smartphones we're able to log in and in real time post our status updates, check in to our favorite places, view the photos of our friends, see where our friends have been and be jealous of their so-much-cooler lives.  But what do we miss out on?

We miss the quick glances that say more than any conversation ever could.  We miss the smiles.  We miss the pauses, the breaths we take before opening our hearts.  We miss the electricity that takes your breath away when eyes meet.  We miss the pure innocence of the supportive touch.  We miss the calming peace of hearing the voice of someone you love.  We miss the joy of human contact.

As technology develops, we spend more and more time behind a laptop, holding a smartphone.  We disregard all the important pieces of humanness.  Texting is faster than a conversation, but honestly - what can really ever be said?

I told a friend once that virtual hugs are better than nothing.  In and of itself, that statement is entirely true.  But what could possibly be better than sitting with quietly with someone, breathing the same air, laughing the same laugh, feeling the same soft touch?

Yes, I see and fully grasp the irony of criticizing technology in a blog posting.  I don't really believe in pure black and white, pure good and bad.  Some forms of technology have improved relationships - Skype has allowed my father to see my niece grow up in the absence of frequent out of state trips.  And I use all of the aforementioned forms.  I post random updates, but mostly because my mind works in a pretty random fashion and that seems to be the only place one sentence thoughts aren't ridiculously out of context.

I'm headed home in a few short weeks.  While there are a number of reasons for this out-of-the-ordinary trip, my heart has been aching for home for months.  Some time ago the best friend a girl could ever ask for went through a difficult time.  Being so far away, I was initially relegated to technology to provide comfort, when what really needed to be done was a larger than life hug and the sharing of tears.  I don't want to be that girl.  I don't want to live my life through text messaging.  I don't want to spend every minute surfing through the 3 million different social networking sites.

I just want to give someone a hug.