Is Technology Really Making Us Lonely?
We blame technology for making us lonely. In part it is. But it’s really a Three World Problem we’re facing. Here’s why.
Some experts and pundits suggest we are in a loneliness epidemic. Others that today’s communications technologies, from smartphones to social media, are leaving us more disconnected than ever. Is that really the case and if so, why are we lonely when we’re so connected?
We live simultaneously in not just two, but three worlds today. The real life, physical world, the world inside our heads and a liminal space in between these two, the digital world. We’re used to living in two worlds as we have since we became conscious as a species. But we are not used to the third world that lives between these two. This is new for our brains.
It is what I call the Three World Problem.
While it is easy to lay the blame at the feet of social media and communications technologies as a whole, the reality is a little more nuanced. And complicated. All technologies are inherently human because we imagined them to be. Then we build on them, making them better and sometimes, worse. We are after all, a tool making species.
One sociologist, Nathan Jurgenson doesn’t seem to think it’s the technology at all, that our lives are so blended together between the digital and the physical…
