Dysfunction Junction

Madame M,

Perpetuating certain problems? Those kinds of criticisms have been leveled at everything from The American Cancer Society to the “war on drugs,” and I can’t say I disagree much with the critics!

You have identified in ready form some deep drawbacks to our new tools and how we use/misuse them and may be enfeebling or even losing key interpersonal skills. Maybe society will become nearly entirely changed, and we the people will become like the sounds of nature—greatly altered, and a great portion not for the better. Like Rachel Carson lamenting that the sounds of true songbirds that she had heard in the springtimes of her youth had been silenced in her adulthood (but that too few noticed), so too might society become this connected/disconnected workable dysfunction, without much awareness (historians possibly excepted) of what has been altered and lost, nor much awareness of its dysfunction.

Comforting and enjoyable to know that you are/were doing pretty much the same things at the same time? Yes. Inside, we crave connection and community, the very things we disrupt by what we often do and do not do. Ever wonder why somehow it seems more fulfilling to watch a movie that is ON the television, or AT the theater, rather than pop it in or stream it? It is the shared experience, and of the moment, that we humans crave.

As for your question: The problems are not often the identical ones, but they are usually very similar. The human condition has at best changed only a little in all these thousands of years of recorded history.

That is the probably the shortest answer from me to ever appear on this blog. But that is all that is required for this particular question. See? Sometimes answers really are short and simple, albeit not always sweet! But as can be seen, those shorties are few and far between (what would that make that one, 1 in a 100?). Of course, undoubtedly there are critics who would up or lower that percentage! :)