Response to The World is Flat #3

The Awkward Conversation

In chapter 14 of his novel, The World Is Flat, Friedman was able to point out how innovations in technology could potentially effect us in ways never thought of before. He brings up the point that we use all of this new technology to buffer us from having to make real human connections. We use it as an excuse to not have the awkward ‘getting to know someone’ conversation. If these tendencies continue they have the potential to hurt us socially, and will inevitably lead to our isolation.

Friedman starts off with a story about how he got in a taxi in Paris, and after he gave the driver his address, not another word was spoken. “Between the two of [them, they] had been doing six different things. There was only one thing [they] never did: talk to each other” (Page 516). With all of this technology that was created to help us, to facilitate mundane everyday tasks, we have lost the innate connection that we have with people. I specifically recall being on a flight to Colorado to visit my aunt and uncle. On the plane I sat next to an elderly woman, who must have been in her early 70s or 80s. As soon as we took off I plugged in and was listening to my iPod and reading this very book, The World Is Flat, and I would occasionally glance over and if our eyes met we would exchange a polite smile. Wanting to take a break from reading I took off my headphones and no sooner had I taken out my headphones out then she started to strike up a conversation with me. Though I politely obliged I would have been happier just listening to my music and learning more about technology. I am the first to admit that I would be most comfortable just going about my own business. Whenever I go to New York and ride on the subway or have to fly on an airplane, I am the first one to plug in to my technology and tune out all others. I don’t want to have to have the awkward conversation with the person next to me. I don’t want to tell them my life story, I just want to get where I am going. This may seem like a strange concept or rude to most, but due to isolation spurred by technology, it may soon become the norm for my generation.

Friedman especially caught my attention when he explained shutting people out (people taking phones out, so they don’t have to talk to people at the ski cabin) inevitably leads to online dating. When people shut each other out, “no wonder people have to do online dating” (Page 518). Though this may seem as a stretch, I immediately saw the connection. I had never seen it this way before, but it all made sense. I remember when I went to the airport to pick up my little sister, we were in the car and she started to tell me how she met this boy, and how they had so much in common. I just remember thinking to myself how weird this was, you never see people talking on planes, everyone is zoned out and doing their own thing. I can barely remember, as bad as it might seem, the last time I engaged in conversation with the person next to me. After reading this passage in the book, every time I would see a match.com commercial I would yell at the television, “well you might have met them if you had just looked around and talked to people.” I remember one commercial in particular; it showed a couple that lived down the street from each other and they never even took the time to introduce themselves. Ironically once they were matched on match.com, they knew it was meant to be and lived happily ever after. It says a lot about our culture and what technology has done when it takes the Internet to tell us that we should or should not talk to people. This goes for not only dating sites but also many other Internet applications.

Technology today and how it is progressing also has a direct effect on our self-confidence. Socially, this affects us in more ways than one. This lack of self-confidence could also explain why we are no longer willing to talk to people next to us, and why we wait to get home and sit at our computers and do it. I know personally that I am more willing to confront someone via text message, e-mail, facebook, or various other similar products rather than a face-to-face conversation. With this becoming the case for more and more people, this could unintentionally affect everything from how we hangout and talk to friends to how businesses are run. And with the way technology is advancing, it might happen sooner than we think.

Though we want peace and quiet when we work and study, when people are around we need to socialize and get to know them and their cultures. If people had never talked or gotten to know each other then the culmination of ideas that melded America would have never happened. With the new advancements being made in technology today, our only hope to maintain the social connection we have with people is to take out our headphones and talk to people. Though this might be awkward or uncomfortable to us, it is integral to social survival.