I usually write about sex and relationships, but on this sunny spring day I’m going to veer off that a little bit and write about technology with a little bit of sex thrown in. I cannot seem to find a person who doesn’t have a smartphone anymore. Now I realize I live in northern California, one of the more affluent places on the planet and a mere 100ish miles from Silicon Valley and 50ish miles from San Francisco. Technology is what my region is known for (and on a micro level wine and weed too, but that’s another conversation for another time). People say that technology, and specifically smartphones, have radically changed our lives and our norms. True. Fifteen years ago would you have imagined you might willingly pay to sleep in a stranger’s home while you are on vacation or pay to get a ride in a stranger’s car? (As an aside, I think it’s worth briefly mentioning how most everything we get from our smartphones is based on our own literacy. It seems lost in the conversation when we talk about technology. Last year I attended a conference where a speaker talked about the challenges her medical center had in providing care to patients who could not read or write *in any language* but who had smartphones. Think about that. It’s wild how quickly we take literacy for granted when it comes to smartphones.)
Back to technology. Lately I have been increasingly noticing the very language we use to describe what we are doing with our smartphones and other technology. We say we are “more connected” - but what we really have is more correspondence in the form of emails, texts, likes, and comments. We say we “go online” to look something up — but where are we going exactly? We are not going anywhere with our physical body - we are probably sitting on our couch or at our desk - and instead using the internet as a research tool or library. We say someone is “using porn” — when in reality they are most likely sitting by themselves viewing pornographic imagery. (Do you say you use walking? Do you say you use dinner with friends?) I fully admit I am not a digital native. I remember when texting first really came into people’s lives. At the time I myself didn’t quite get it - why would I text someone but not call them? (Yep, I know I sounded a lot like “Get off my lawn!” and I own it.) Also at that time, I was a counselor at a middle school and of course the students had really grabbed ahold of texting with a frenzy. One day I asked one of my middle school-aged clients, “Why do you like texting so much?” And I will never, ever forget what that boy said: “Because there’s times I want to tell someone something but not have a whole conversation about it.” Aaaaaah, yes! From the mouths of babes. He described a one-way communication without a lot of risk or vulnerability. Ding ding ding! Ironically, soon after that conversation I was at a huge and loud outdoor concert and I was trying to find my friends…so I texted one of them and we found each other quickly and painlessly. Texting in that context made it so much easier to fulfill my goal. If I had tried to call my friends on the phone we probably would not have been able to hear each other, certainly not find each other in the mass of people, and just gotten more frustrated. Since then I have come to appreciate texting more and see the value to it as another means of communication/correspondence. But it is most definitely not connection. IMO how we are thinking about and talking about the internet, technology, and how we use these two things is becoming increasingly problematic and inaccurate. The language we use to describe how we are incorporating the internet into our daily lives is sadly misleading and because of that our language is shaping our experience of it. The experience shapes our language and the language shapes our experience. It’s a peculiar feedback loop to observe. Now I also know that the same word can have different meanings based on a variety of factors. But I’m not sure we as a society get that when it comes to technology — certain technologies came into our lives so abruptly we adapted to it by using existing language to at best approximate what we are doing with that technology. We think we are connected when we are not. We may have more easy access to other people and other information as a result of the internet but we’re most certainly not more connected. Most of the time we are sitting *by ourselves* having an internal-to-us experience with the technology in our hand or on our desks, several steps removed from real human-to-human interaction. Technology is also a vehicle for our imagination and projections; it’s there for every flight of ideas we have without any limits. There is a growing body of evidence that tell us with the increased use of tech devices comes increased rates of dysphoric moods, not more euphoric moods. Using technology in certain ways makes many of us feel worse, not better. We think we are connected when we are not...and then we do not know why we feel bad. And when I work with couples and I ask them “What’s your goal in this therapy?”, it is quite common that I will hear the answer “To feel more connected to my partner during sex.” Connected - there’s that word again. If they are referring to that feeling we get when we are “connected” via the internet and technology, I don’t think that is what they are referring to; people don’t come to therapy to feel worse about their situation. Feeling connected from online activities is not even remotely the same event as feeling connected to another human being, in real life, who (maybe) loves and cares for you, and sharing a mutually pleasurable experience with them. Remember, while technology can make you cum it can’t hug you back. Comments are closed.
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