Technology is lonely

How do we separate ourselves from technology? What makes us different from being robots? Humans have emotions, free will, senses etc. We are unique. It's not the one thing, but a combination of things that make us what we are. We are social creatures that thrive when surrounded by others. With todays technological advances, we can always stay connected and up to date on the lives of others. It's amazing and keeps us in contact with loved ones. But does it?

This week we watched an episode of Black Mirror called Be Right Back. A woman loses her partner, who happened to be very active on social media. She was shown a program that can help you talk somewhat to the person you've lost based on their previous social media activity. She eventually puts this program into an identical robot of her late partner. It becomes an obsession almost and a way to try and hold on to the man she loved. She becomes frustrated though because this robot can't behave like her partner would have. At the end she doesn't get rid of the robot but keeps him in the attic.

The idea that really stuck out for me in this episode is that social media does not connect us to people, it doesn't make us feel better. It isolates us and distracts us from what is going on in our lives. Everyday people are walking around with their eyes locked on their smart phones. I have been in situations where a group will be in the same room texting rather than looking up and saying something. Many of us scroll aimlessly through feeds to procrastinate on tasks at hand. Some try to boast a lavish lifestyle. And for what? To make yourself feel better by showing the world how lucky and happy you are? If you were happy would you need to do that? We can message people and post on their walls, but the human interaction is lost this way. We just read words and emojis. We don't get to see the facial expression or hear voice tones or have touch and sounds. We are essentially communicating with robots. And we act like robots by messaging and posting.

The lady in the episode was not able to really feel comforted by the robot because it's just not real contact. We isolate ourselves from the world around us because we have become robots, programed to like, share, tweet and snap.  This online interaction is almost uncanny. It's like you're being social, but never being fully satisfied, and then continue on social media to try and connect with someone. This life is lonely. We need personal interactions, we need those emotions and contact. If we don't have that we may as well be robots.

This article I think in a simple way sums up the kinds of isolation social media can cause.

http://www.activebeat.com/your-health/women/5-ways-social-media-contributes-to-social-isolation/