[umtrey]

Gone are the tacit alliances with fellow subway riders, the brief evolution of sympathy with pedestrians. That predictable progress of unspoken affinity is now interrupted by an impulse to either refresh a page or to take a website-worthy photo.

It's sentences like this that I would imagine to be under a dictionary definition of "nostalgia." I read this, immediately look off into the distance in an oh-so-subtle way, and then wonder quickly how this type of thing could be changed... and if it would be changed.

Think of the last time the bus or the subway car stopped more suddenly than anyone expected. Most everyone will look up, look around, and make brief eye contact with another person to make sure that someone else felt it too. There's that initial panic that sets over a number of people, then, seeing how others have this same, shared experience, everyone is immediately partially comforted. Why wouldn't we be? Someone else is here, they know what's going on, we'll get through this together.

The instant connectivity means that this period of worry before we make the most fleeting of eye contact is even shorter - we're getting rid of that terrifying low in order to have a constant sense of stability. When we do this, we don't feel that euphoric positive delta of connection and of community. The internet, the tubes, the twitters, the facebooks, the pictures, everything is just a numbing agent so we don't have to fret for that initial period of time.

We've advanced as a society to avoid the great pains of life as much as possible - fighting to remove hunger, distance ourselves from war, medicine to cure the sick. Why do we think it unreasonable or unexpected for society to also inadvertently make progress towards avoiding the emotional pains of life?

[protomyth]

"You know the good ole days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems" - Billy Joel - Keeping the Faith

to add, a lot of people used to read books or magazines on the subway, now they can read off a device, plus for a lot of users our physical location no longer dictates who we can make contact with.

It maybe shallow, but at least technology reminds us that there is someone out there when we might not be the type to connect casually with those in front of us.

[cparedes]

I'm reminded of Marshall McLuhan when I read your thoughts on the subject, and when I read the article.

The "amputation of our limbs" with devices that seem to enhance our senses is quite a striking metaphor from McLuhan's books.