Brian X. Chen, who is the lead consumer technology writer for The New York Times, authored an article that appeared in the November 11, 2024 edition of the newspaper. In the hard copy version of the paper, Chen's article was titled as follows: "How the Tech That Connects Us Has Set the Stage for Isolation." If you click the link to read the article online (The Times' paywall policies permitting, of course), you will find a completely different headline: "How Tech Created a ‘Recipe for Loneliness.’"
A very small amount of linguistic analysis indicates that something is just a bit "off" in those headline descriptions of Chen's article. A tip that this is so can be found in the incongruity of the two different claims apparently being made in the dueling headlines. If Chen's article is first asserting that there is a "Tech That Connects" (hard copy headline), the second version of the headline is apparently making a completely contrary claim, with "Tech" being identified as creating a "Recipe for Loneliness."
Well, which is it? It has to be one thing or the other, right? Or is this another variety of the Schrödinger's Cat conundrum?
I think the answer is pretty simple. "Tech" does not, in fact, "Connect."
"Tech" may provide us the illusion of a connection between us, but "we," human beings, exist in "real life," in a "real world." Person-to person connections, made within the physical world, is the only thing that truly "connects" us. "Connection," in other words, is different from "communication." A posting to a social media website, or an email blast, may well communicate very effectively to lots of different people, simultaneously. But that communication, no matter how many people may be involved, from two to two million, does not, in fact, "connect" those who are involved in the communication.
This understanding of the difference between "communication" and "connection" has an important lesson to teach us about our politics. Any real and effective political effort must be initiated and sustained in the "real world," with real world, physical connections an absolute requirement. People need to be in the same (physical) place at the same time, in order to "connect." Online won't do it.
Let me (one more time) cite to Margaret Mead and to Octavia Butler as those who truly understand the nature of genuine connection - and how political, social, and economic change can be accomplished.
As I often put it, tying my advice to some powerful fiction from Octavia Butler: "Find Some Friends."
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