Addicted to alone
Facebook shared the following, attributed to a site called “I love myself, do you?”
“The saddest thing is when you are feeling down, and you look around and realize that there is no shoulder for you to cry on.”
Wow. True words capturing the fear of being alone.
Even more pragmatic or to the point is the television program entitled simply “Alone.” The premise of this series is to observe the behavior of a number of experienced survivalists, outfitted with adequate materials to support themselves in isolated locations, and award the participant who stays the longest with a cash prize. Of course, the places where the contestants are left are also places where no one lives, e.g. the temperate rainforest of Vancouver Island, Patagonia or Mongolia. The program shows how they manage to construct a shelter, find food and pass the time in between. Some are astoundingly creative, building noteworthy huts complete with fireplaces. Others throw a tarp over some trees and rough it out in what is always very inclement weather.
Most often the first to leave do so because of injuries. After that, hunger becomes the filter. For some, that hunger surpasses the physical need for food and becomes the need for company. By the end, all of the participants, who are keeping a self-directed video diary, are desperate for their families.
This is not surprising since homo sapiens are social animals. Our long infancy and childhood enable us to learn and grow within the culture of a people. We are who are families and friends are. We are defined by our relationships and depend those connections for survival, if not outright, then most certainly on many levels, Tom Hanks and a soccer ball notwithstanding
Even old psych texts describe abnormal behavior with illustrations of cases where children are raised with minimal human touch, where primates, who share much of our genetics, are raised without access to another of their kind. The results are beyond sad, beyond disastrous, producing physical illness and observable aberrant behavior.
Today we have developed an addiction to electronics that separate us from each other as surely as being isolated in Patagonia. Sit in any area where there are people gathered and note how many are attentive to their phones. Phone involvement seems to be ubiquitous. Talking on the phone while shopping takes place in supermarkets, clothing stores, convenience stores, dollar stores, even hardware stores. What are they talking about? I’ve walked into exam rooms in the ER and witnessed patients talking on their phones while a clinician takes their blood pressure. I’ve watched a customer interrupt giving a meal order to answer the phone and have learned that the new gift of choice among 10-year old’s is an iPhone. The mobile phone has become one of the biggest barriers in schools.
Talking on the phone or texting is only part of the attraction, though Lord only knows with whom and about what these communicators are communing. Modern cell phones are mini-computers, said to contain more power than those that enabled the launch of the space program. They are search engines, computers, notebooks, clocks, calendars, gaming platforms, etc. They have become the answer to questions we didn’t know we had.
There are no children outside anymore. The streets, formerly full of the sound of children at play, are quiet. Our future generations are inside, playing solitary games on their devices. If children’s play is preparation for adult life, we are creating a world where the human need for other humans is subverted to the unloving, uncaring connection to electrically powered others, where there are few, if any, shoulders to cry on.
In a world where we are ever more connected by the internet, we are separated by it even more. We have been inveigled into believing that email, texting and google searches take the place of direct, face-to-face, ear-to-ear interaction. Social interaction is limited to several playing the same video game.
Loneliness is the new epidemic. It hasn’t made its way here aboard a plane from another country. It hasn’t hidden in some dark jungle reservoir to escape into the larger world. It has come to us from our own hands, an unanticipated result of our own innovation. It affects all ages … yes, even children … and the solution is not in the lab, but around our dinner tables, in the woods, playgrounds, libraries, ball fields and the unstructured play and social intercourse that is becoming a distant memory.
Better a shoulder to cry on than a text message or another building in Minecraft.
Ann Ferro is a mother, a grandmother and a retired social studies teacher. While still figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, she lives in Marcellus with lots of books, a spouse and a large orange cat.
