Prioritizing People

Professor J, 

"The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.” Joseph Priestly


In airports and coffee shops I see people with iPods on and laptops in use. They sit there in a completely connected yet oddly disconnected world of their own, oblivious to all going on around them. Everything about them says "Leave me alone." But perhaps they are communicating with friends, writing a book, or taking an online class. I'd like to think so.

People's diverted attention at the airport always astounds me. I am practically incapable of concentrating on anything  when traveling because people watching is fascinating to me. Books and magazines become merely props to hide behind while I take in the passing human parade, wonder about their lives, and try to imagine what their stories might be.

Your story about the geography professor is disheartening on many levels and perhaps more so to the mother of a college student. The escape from reality you describe is perhaps the new "gin" that Shirky compared television to, though he thinks the internet a great boon to society for all the reasons we've already discussed.


We are in a battle always, it seems, to find balance.


You are correct when you say that it may be a crisis that corrects much of this social isolation. We often experience that truth on a smaller scale. Several years ago we had a fierce storm that knocked out power all over the city for days. While putting up with all the problems that go along with a lack of electricity our family also played board games, talked, spent time in the same room together, checked on neighbors, and my son and I took the opportunity to sit in our cove and look at the night sky. Light pollution normally dulls the heavens to the point where it seems all you regularly see is the moon. An entire city plunged into darkness suddenly revealed what we are blind to. A couple of days later when power was restored my son noted that it was "kind of sad". While the comfort of air conditioning is always welcome in July in the south he was sensing that there is a price attached to our modern climate controlled lifestyles. He had a temporary glimpse of another way of being a neighborhood and a family.

Exactly two minutes after power was restored what did we all do? Of course, we powered up all our electronic devices and retreated to separate rooms with them.

If we could learn to hold our relationships in the highest esteem and foster our creativity (making the best use of technology to do those things) while recognizing our need for connection to the natural world we'd improve things greatly. Discussing it and giving it some thought can't be a bad place to start, my friend.