Lab 6

It seems that some people who know a bit more about society and the psychology behind it than us (and a heck of a lot better idea of what to do in their spare time) have discovered that us Americans don't have the trust or the togetherness we used to.

 

      24 years ago (roughly), Americans had 3 people they felt they could confide in. Now they have 2. Hmmm, that is only 1 less right? So what's the big deal?

 

      Well, first of all, those confidents tend to be within the family more. It's very likely that you have at least 2 family members (mom and dad perhaps?) and if they are your only confidents, you probably haven't interacted too much with the outside world. If you don't really interact with the outside world, what do you have to confide in the first place?

 

      More importantly (much much MUCH more importantly), WHAT IS CAUSING THIS? And why should we care? Logically speaking, was this trend to continue, 2 confidents would become 1 confident, and then 1 confident would become nobody, and then where would that leave us? Ironically, complete alienated in the middle of the greatest amount of people there has ever been on the world (and the most communication, the ease of transport, etc. etc.). Staying connected has never been easier, yet we would be more alone then ever.

 

      Ain't that just the must depressing idea ever that --- hey look what Peggy Sue just wrote on Bob Smith's wall on FeceBook!

 

      Hmmmm,

 

      Although the study didn't seem to suggest that online social networks diminished friendships, they certainly don't seem to help.

 

      In my own experience, often times technology has replaced the effort to actually see somebody in person. It's not worth the trouble to get around technology you're the only one trying, I might add, because no one is going to try and figure out how to avoid it and you end up all by yourself without even indirect communication anyway, but the more advanced technology becomes, the more and more the face to face communication lessens, even though in reality we're no further apart physically.

 

      So technology seems to influence our interaction greatly, whether you want to argue for better or worse. What about our jobs? We see people all the time there, don't we?

 

      Hmmm, maybe not. Colleagues at the office may interact with us, but more often than not there is a long drive home, and you're not going to see them in public, or want to (I base this from what I know of my parent's workplace, and logical common sense). Again, so what?

 

      WE WORK TO BLOODY MUCH! How much faster can I turn the hamster wheel than my neighbor? How much more do I want that tasty carrot dangling in front of my face?

 

      Alright: if we've established that A) Technology replaces face to face communication a large enough percent of the time to make it worth mentioning, B) We work a lot more, with often times long commutes, then we could extrapolate that C) We don't have a lot of free time.

 

      From C), we can go further and assume that because we don't have a lot of free time, and that some of that is spent communicating with people far away, then we can conclude with D) We don't form organizations or participate in clubs or events within the community as much as we used to.

 

      Therefore, our number of people we are likely to see regularly are diminished, and thus it is only logical that our number of confidents would diminish as well.

 

      In a nutshell, the only possible outcome of this perversion of inter- personal relations will end up with everybody distrusting anybody, and then we'll all kill ourselves because we have no one to play shrink.

 

      Well, not really, but depression sets in if you don't have anyone to talk to. There is nothing you can hold in forever if it is really important to you for good or bad reasons. Imagine if there was nobody you could tell your worldly frustrations to, or your worldly revelations, or your worldly things of general importance?

 

      We could try and start a conversation with any stranger we see on the street . . .

 

      Or we could start by meeting our next door neighbors . . .