Images in screen may be further than they appear
SOCIAL COMMENTARY
On a recent cross country flight with five hours to kill and a screaming baby to drown out, I decided to pay eight dollars to watch Spike Jonze’s award winning film “Her,” starting Joaquin Phoenix. It didn’t take long for me to get wrapped up in the story, identifying with the main character, Theodore, while simultaneously thinking he was a lunatic. I was intrigued by the themes that Jonze chose to explore – emerging technology juxtaposed against natural human psychology. It left me wondering one simple yet incredibly complex question that I’ve been dwelling on ever since. Does modern technology help or hinder our ability to form genuine personal connections with others? Specifically, how does it affect our ability to foster and cultivate romantic relationships?
For those who haven’t seen the movie, the plot centers on a recently divorced man and his mobile concierge named Samantha. Samantha is comparable to iPhone’s Siri, or Amazon Echo’s Alexa, though exceptionally more advanced – to put it lightly. Despite the fact that she (it?) is a computer operating system, she/it is technologically capable of human emotion. If you’re currently going into a logistics tailspin, don’t bother. The details are lightly touched on, but leave the viewer no choice but to accept the possibility of complex scientific advances in a present society. Not before long, they fall in love, have phone sex, go on vacation together (really, you have to just go with it), all the things that normal couples do. Except that one of them is not actually a human life form. Small details. After seeing Her, I couldn’t help but question the way modern technology has changed the way we form personal connections.
So, what’s up with the way we communicate these days anyway? I would hardly consider myself a visionary by suggesting that the more connected we become, the less connected we become. I know, so Meta. But, here we are with an endless array of means to keep in touch. Text messaging, Twitting, Instagram, Skype, Facebook, FaceTime, Snapchat, G-Chat, FaceChat (fine, it’s not a real thing – yet), the list goes on. The names alone tend to suggest there are many faces and many chats going on.
If this is the case, then why does it seem like we have a more difficult time forming personal connections? I’m talking real, tangible, face-to-face connections here, not that one time you admired that dress that one girl from that one class in college wore in her Instagram post so you liked it and now you guys follow each other and you’re like totally basically BFF’s. If this is the case, then why is it deemed so bizarre and rare, like sighting a magical wildebeest, for a guy to call a girl up on the phone (or vice versa)? If this is the case, then how can a conversation flow so naturally on a dating app, yet come to an uncomfortably grinding halt upon meeting in person? If this is the case, then why do you occasionally receive text messages saying “What’s up?” roughly sixty seconds after calling someone on the phone?
I realize that for me to criticize this kind of behavior is most certainly the pot calling the kettle black. Sure, I’ve never had the guts to call a guy on the phone (do drunk dials count?) and will usually opt for a witty (but not overeager, of course) text message instead. Why yes, I’ve eagerly disclosed my obsessive infatuation with Harry Potter to some bro on Tinder, and then suddenly turned into a socially incompetent mime the instant we meet face-to-face. Fine, I’ve screened a phone call (or two), responding with a lame text that I’m stuck late at work and my boss is really needy and can’t you see that she’s basically Meryl Streep and I’m Anne Hathaway and I can’t really talk right now?
As much as I’m sure you’d love nothing more than for me to continue my personal examples, allow me to throw a few statistics at you.
64% of American adults own a smartphone. Of that, 46% say that they “cannot live” without their device.
U.S. smartphone and tablet owners spend two hours a day just on apps. 127 minutes to be exact.
The average American checks their phone approximately 150 times a day.
An article by The Daily Mail goes as far as to claim that the average smartphone user spends more time per day in their mobile device than with their significant other. Sound crazy? A former boyfriend of mine had a love affair with his phone that was far more advanced than ours. It was the very first thing he looked at in the morning and the last thing he saw before closing his eyes. His phone was in his hand more than my own hand ever was. Almost every time we went out to eat, if he wasn’t preoccupied with reading the menu or eating the food in front of him, he was arbitrarily scrolling through his phone while I danced like a circus monkey vying for his attention. When I finally asked why he was always on his phone, he simply responded with “Well, we see each other all the time” as if it were so obvious, and so ludicrous of me to suggest we have a conversation. Oh. Okay. Great. Cue stuffing french fries into mouth.
Listen, I get it. Modern technology allows us to stay connected to the people and places and things that we would otherwise never be able to touch, right? Yes. No question there. Well, maybe. There might be a question. Which is, does modern technology encourage digital connections so much so that we have begun to actively shy away from physical connections?
In the movie Her, there is a scene where Theodore sees his ex-wife Catherine for the first time since they split. Upon being asked if he’s seeing anybody, Theodore beings to explain his relationship with Samantha. Incredulous, Catherine tells him that it makes her very sad that he can’t handle real emotions. She goes on to say that “You always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of actually dealing with anything real.”
Samantha doesn’t just represent one thing to Theodore (and by extension, society at large). She is an escape. A distraction. An extension, a reflection of Theodore’s thoughts, actions and choices. Catherine was right. Samantha does allow him to have the security of a relationship without having to experience the reality of a tangible commitment. Because most distinctly, Samantha is a shield. She allows Theodore to show emotion and take risks, to lay all his cards on the table without the fear of rejection or failure. This is evidenced in the way she edits his work assignments and encourages him to open up to her, no matter what ridiculous things he says. What Theodore ultimately fails to realize is that she is designed to do these things, mistaking her mechanical DNA for biological DNA.
I believe Samantha to be a metaphor for today’s technological advances (specifically social media), while Theodore a metaphor for today’s society. We use our smartphones and our tablets and our laptops as shields. We hide behind a screen, carefully crafting a virtual identity that we can seamlessly substitute for an organic one.
In 2014, the Pew Research Center conducted a sampling survey of smartphones owners as part of a larger research initiative. During the survey, smartphone owners were contacted twice a day over a period of one week and asked how they had used their phone in the hour prior to taking the survey. 76% of participants said they used their device to “avoid being bored.” A concerning 41% of participants claimed to have used their phone to “avoid others” around them.
Theodore’s yearning for a risk free commitment and society’s inflation with creating virtual identities culminates in a very real offering called Invisible Boyfriend. Much as it sounds, Invisible Boyfriend is a web service that allows you to build your ideal companion – from looks, to interests, to profession, right down to a tailored love story of how you met. For a monthly fee, your “boyfriend” will send you up to 100 text messages, 10 voicemails and one handwritten note. The catch? Your knight in shining armor doesn’t actually exist. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
(Excerpt from a longer think piece)