socio-lazy beings
How many phone numbers can you say you actually know by heart? If you are like me, you probably remember your home number, maybe your office number and your direct extension and perhaps a few 1-800 branded numbers from the radio jingles you hear in the car.
If you are my age, lets say older then 35, you might remember a few more numbers from history – those you knew when the idea of a cellphone seemed as crazy an idea as Maxwell Smart’s shoe-phone. Back then, you had to dial the numbers and in the process you’d memorize many of them. Back in the 70′s and 80′s, most of my friends new at least 20 numbers by heart — their girlfriends, their ex-boyfriend’s parents number, their parent’s office numbers and even some aunts and uncles. When you asked a girl for her number, you were talking to her face to face and she would actually write it down for you on a piece of paper, sometime with a smiley, and hand it to you. To impress her, you would say, “hey what’s your number?”. She would say, “I’ll write it down for you?” And you would reply, ‘don’t worry, I got it!’ and just memorize it. It was a significant, personal and even meaningful exchange between two people.
Today, everything is geared towards saving time, making things easy and convenient. But at what cost?
Most people hardly remember their wife’s number. There is no need to with cell phones and their digital index card. There is no need to memorize anything but your wife’s name. Actually, you don’t even need to remember that, you just need to make sure to remember what icon you’ve assigned her or have her photo appear when she calls you.
Cell phones have made us irreversibly lazy and changed basic human interactions forever.
And what about location based services? More and more people tell me “just give me the address and I’ll get there.” Unfortunately, it is not because they are so geographically adept. Quite the opposite. With a GPS, they still need directions from the parking lot to the meeting room, but that’s about it. They are “geo lazy” and that is having a significant impact on behavior. They drive today with tunnel vision unaware of what road they are on, not noticing much about where they are going since they feel no need to take mental notes. The GPS will get them to their next destination and they are free to think about other things. Some would say that is great – a more efficient use of time. I say it lends to making people less aware and dulls their common sense. Roads and human behavior are dynamic. When someone arrives late to a meeting with me with a lame GPS excuse, I tag them as geo-lazy and they automatically lose a lot of points with me.
So what about Social Media? Those who use it think they are oh so cool. Those who don’t think those who do are oh so smart and savvy. But are we all becoming socio-lazy beings? Our kids get are like addicts seeking a constant feed of Facebook, IMs and SMS’s. Research shows that there is a surge in dopamine with online interactions and activity, almost like in real world interactions. However, the confined, inhuman Facebook environment make this social experiment scary. Millions of people, right now, are neglecting a legacy of thousands of years of face to face interaction shaped through evolution. They have traded it in for “like” buttons, smileys and LOLs. Should we care? Can we fully comprehend the impact of this social laziness on society yet?
Before we wait for the research, which I promise will point to the need for balance in our life — at least until we eventually evolve into beings that do not need muscle tone, human touch or other sensory stimulations — then we should ensure our kids have that balance and not leave them to figure out the limits on their own. As digital natives, they are not aware there is another world out there. Leading technology tools are already available to help us contain online social time. Shouldn’t we assure our kids Facebook diet is balanced socio-lazy beings with some real face to face interactions before social interaction is changed forever ?
