It is easier for us to make a phone call than to meet in person. Or write a message – so there is no need to listen to the answer. By sending a letter by e-mail, we hide even our own voice from the interlocutor. And messengers allow you to reduce communication to a minimum. Every step along this path leads us away from emotions and humanity, says writer Jonathan Foer.
My grandfather, my father’s father, could not see his children before they were born. He had to content himself with his imagination, placing his hand on his wife’s rounded belly. But my father already could – and for the first time saw me on the screen thanks to the technology invented at one time in order to detect defects in the hulls of ships. And his imagination was already guided by the streams of ultrasonic waves flowing around my body.
Obstetrician Ian Donald from Glasgow, who thought of moving the ultrasound machine from the shipyard to the doctor’s office, believed that the opportunity to see unborn children would encourage mothers to love them more and reduce the number of abortions. However, this technology subsequently began to be used, including for abortion. And not only for medical reasons in case of obvious developmental defects, but even in situations where the parents simply did not like the sex of the unborn child.
To witness a miracle, it is not at all necessary to believe in it, you can simply encounter it.
It is clear that today’s classic black-and-white ultrasound images play an important role in matters of life and death. But we make decisions on these issues. What and how prepares us for these decisions?
Expecting the first child, my wife and I argued heatedly: is it worth it to find out his gender in advance. I decided to ask the opinion of my uncle, a famous gynecologist. My uncle was never known for his inclination to give advice, nor for spirituality.
However, his answer was quite unequivocal: “Don’t do this. When the doctor looks at the screen and tells you the gender, you are dealing with information. When a child is born and you see everything for yourself, you are dealing with a miracle.” I don’t believe in miracles, but I followed the advice. Uncle was right. As it turned out, in order to witness a miracle, it is not at all necessary to believe in it, you can simply encounter it.
Psychologists who study empathy and compassion have long established that, for example, the brain reacts instantly to physical pain. And “assessment of the psychological and moral aspects of a given situation” requires some time. In other words, the depth of experience and comprehension is directly related to time costs.
For this reason, by focusing on the speed of obtaining information and preferring scattering of emoticons and lines of SMS messages to hundreds of pages of novels, we sacrifice the ability to empathize. Simone Weil wrote that attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. It is not difficult to understand that our relations with the world, with each other, and with ourselves are becoming less and less generous.
A thick novel requires a lot from the reader, but above all – attention. I can do almost anything, listening to music or watching TV. I can chat with a friend while looking at paintings in an exhibition. But when I read a novel, I am forced to devote myself to the book alone, putting everything else aside. The novel teaches empathy and expands the horizons of my ideas, it requires attention – and thus makes me show generosity. Including in relation to himself.
We think we use technology to save time. But more and more often they, on the contrary, take this time from us.
We tend to think of technology as a means to expand and improve our capabilities. Google, as everyone knows, organizes and makes accessible the world of information. The car allows us to develop a speed that we can’t achieve on our own two feet, and the bomb helps to easily and quickly kill a bunch of enemies that we would not have managed with our bare hands. But technology is not only effective, it is also affective. They affect us and are not limited to technology alone.
A declaration of love, pronounced on a date, voiced on the phone, handwritten or sent in the form of SMS, will be perceived in completely different ways – even if the confessor puts all the strength and depth of his feelings into it. The expression of the eyes, the sound of the voice and the intonation of the speech, the slope and outlines of the letters, and finally, the font preinstalled by the phone manufacturer – all this affects the very meaning of the words.
Most communication technologies began as a kind of “prosthesis” – an attempt to replace what we do not have. We can’t meet and talk to a person – well, here’s the phone to call him. And if he is not at home, then here is an answering machine to dictate a message. Similarly, online communication was born as a replacement for telephone communication. Then SMS arrived, making communication even faster and more mobile. But none of these technologies were designed to improve how we communicate with each other. Simplify, replace, restricting within any acceptable limits – yes. But don’t improve.
But then a strange thing happened. We began to favor these “prostheses”, simplified and limited replacements. It is easier for us to make a phone call than to meet in person. And dictating a message to an answering machine is even easier – there is no need to listen to the answer. And now we are already choosing the moment for the call when our addressee is definitely not at home.
Sending an e-mail is even easier – we hide even our own voice from the interlocutor. And messages cut our communication costs and create another shell to hide in. Each step forward on this path is a step towards information, but away from our ability to do the work of emotions, from our own humanity.
Resisting new technologies is the only decision that is even more stupid than completely and unconditionally accepting them.
But the problem is that by accepting these reduced versions of communication, and then preferring them, we ourselves become simplified versions of human beings. As we get used to talking less, we feel less and less. Or maybe we feel only what we are supposed to feel from the point of view of developers and sellers of communication devices.
Like many of my acquaintances, I am concerned that the mobile phone and the Internet impoverish my life, replacing the depth of experiences with momentary brightness and not allowing me to concentrate on what is really important.
I once found myself checking my email while I was bathing my kids, or aimlessly browsing the web when a sentence had not been completed and an important idea had not yet been formulated. And on a fine spring day, I happened to look for a thicker shade so that the sun would not glare on the phone screen. Hasn’t this happened to you?
Doesn’t this mean that modern technologies, in the form in which they filled our daily lives, diminish our importance? And that this process is gaining momentum? We think we use technology to save time. But more and more often they are the opposite – they take this time from us. And if they leave it at our disposal, it is not of very high quality, rich and deep.
It worries me that as we feel more and more “the world at our fingertips”, it is getting further away from our heart. It’s not an “either-or” choice: resisting new technologies is the only decision that is even more stupid than completely and unconditionally accepting them. No, this is a matter of balance, but the balance that defines our lives.
Surely the day will come when smart nanorobots implanted in the body will get to the heart and identify problems much earlier than we feel the first symptoms of problems and go to the doctor. And other nanorobots will repair the heart, and so cleverly that we will not feel pain and will not spend either time or money on treatment. Will it be a miracle? Yes, but only for those whose hearts retain the ability to perceive miracles. In fact, this is the main ability for which the heart is generally worth protecting and repairing.
About the Author: Jonathan Safran Foer is an American author of several international best-selling novels, including Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Total Illumination (Eksmo, 2013, 2014). In 2010, Foer was named one of the 20 best writers under 40 by TheNewYorker magazine.