Update of the Month

I am going to go ahead and give this post the coveted title of "Update of the Month" in light of the fact that it will most likely be the only update of this month. Blogging is harder than I thought it would be.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about technology's place in society. Clearly, no one has ever tried to tackle the subject of technology’s role in social interactions, and so you can add “trailblazer” to the list of my many accomplishments. I feel compelled to write this, however, after a drive to the beach with a friend who will remain unnamed. This friend offered to make the 30 minute drive to Irondequoit on the most perfect day for the beach I’ve seen this summer. He offered to go with three of his friends, people he chooses to interact with on a daily basis. However, on the drive there, he pulled out his iPhone at each stoplight to check face book (and other, less family friendly social networking sites) rather than communicating with his passengers. When asked why he felt compelled to do this, he claimed that he would have plenty of time to talk to us at the beach, and he felt no need to chit chat on the ride there. Of course, he was sort of joking when he said that, and after being mocked repeatedly for his iPhone addiction he put the phone down, and whipped out his Speedo.

Technology is great for helping people communicate. A friend who just moved to Maine to work on a farm keeps a blog about her farming experience that enables her to let her whole family know what is going on in her life. My mother is finally learning how to text, and so I’m sure I can look forward to many poorly written sentence fragments from her in the coming weeks. It concerns me, though, that so many people find impersonal interactions on devices like iPhones and Blackberries to be more fulfilling than a conversation with a friend about the woman in the car next to you who was just picking her nose at the red light. Are these people using technology as a way to make up for some kind of social anxiety, as a form of less stressful communication? Or has technology become an unnecessary crutch in the social interactions of people who would be just fine without it?