It is funny when you get into the subway, train, or bus, and the only thing you see is people looking down at there phones. Nobody talks or looks at each other. In a way, it seems out of the ordinary to look at someone. Why? Are we not a social animal? Isn't our capacity to communicate what made us in the first place become the apex of the evolutionary race?
Every commute reminds me of those WWII movies when soldiers were about to disembark into Normandy. Everyone is quiet, as if their sole was not with them anymore. In the subway, it is kind of the same thing. Those early morning commutes where everyone is tired and unhappy, and try to evade this by reaching for contact with someone else who shares their moment. Everyone seems to be trapped in another world, in a digital world. You take out your smartphone to see what your friends are doing. As if someone else was could share your discomfort of sitting next to yet another stranger. And it is funny how these strangers are strangers. We recognize the same people from our commute. We probably share more time with them than with most Facebook friends. Yet, we cannot make eye contact (and let us not even talk about having a conversation). The funny thing is that we probably share so many things in common with most of these "strangers" in our commute. Similar tastes in music, books, movies, clothing, food. Same sport teams, hobbies, and maybe even friends. But, why bother with getting to know someone new, when we have our friends at the reach of our smartphone.
It is true that social networks like Facebook or Twitter have givens us the possibility to contact people from all over the globe, and to not lose contact form people we have met in our lives. But, is this really making us be more social?
“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” Albert Einstein
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