Before we dive into the article, watch this video entitled: The Innovation of Loneliness.
The Innovation of Loneliness from Shimi Cohen on Vimeo.
This is one of the most though provoking videos I've ever watched. I found this years ago and I still find myself coming back to the concepts discussed in the video. The concept of creating our own loneliness is so bewilderingly interesting to me. A lot of times when we're surfing through the lives of others, we forget that we are looking at snippets of a whole, and it becomes so easy to get lost in a world that has been created specifically to please a viewer. Too frequently, we are recording and taking pictures and surfing, trying to capture and immortalized these little moments so that we can keep them forever. Instead of enjoying where we are and being a part of the moments, we are watching from behind a lens. This creates a unique type of isolation that humans haven't really encountered before, and humans are not meant for isolation.
By instinct, people crave connection and intimacy, but when you break it down, humans aren't really capable of having more than 150 people. With the creation of the internet and other forms of technology we were given creative outlets that allow us to manage our social lives effectively. On the other side of that same coin, we begin to formulate our sense of worth, our sense of happiness and our sense of success by measuring what other people are doing, and seeing.
"People begin faking experiences so that they have something to share because to share is to be relevant. We use technology to define ourselves through personal promotion. We choose the best image or the funniest status to serve as a desirable perception of who we are."
All of social media boils down to present an image of ourselves as we want it to be. We get to edit and delete away to contents of our lives until we achieve an idealized version of what we want the world to perceive us as. A girl in the Netherlands convinced her family and friends that she traveled to East Asia, when in truth she never left home.
In another video called: "I Forgot my Phone," the creator shows herself walking through her world without a phone when everyone around her has one.
It was intriguing to see the disconnection that goes unnoticed on a daily basis; the disconnect that I myself am a part of. Being “alone together” is becoming entirely too habitual. We create our loneliness and isolation by adhering to the false perceptions of the technological world.
Loneliness is not just a mental problem. There are physiological manifestations that are just as damaging. Studies in 2013 showed that the amount of time spent on Facebook was inversely related to how happy one felt during the day. The more time on Facebook, the sadder they were. Loneliness causes people to be less concerned with physical, social interaction and more concerned with self-preservation. Loneliness stems from a lack of connection and feeling rejected. That lack of connection triggers a fight or flight instinct and we tend to shy away from people we don't think we can trust (aka strangers). As a result, people are unable to form those distinctly human relationships and connections.
When a person becomes a slave to technology their world becomes narrow and closed off. People build up false images of themselves, which creates a barrier and is a breeding ground for isolation and loneliness.
