There’s An App for that.

By: Independent Jack

to: you

At the risk of sounding outdated and out of touch.

subject: We are forgetting how to be human.

Every time I see an Iphone commercial, a little bit of me dies inside.

My father taught me that one of the most important things in life was a firm handshake, and the ability to interact with other people. The ability to carry on a conversation with another human being. The foundation of what made humans what they are today. Discussions, debates, opinions and speech have been trumped by texting, facebooking, and twittering. Human gestures have given way to emoticons. You no longer need to catch up with someone, all you need to do is check their facebook status, or their latest tweet. It’s a regression of magnificent technological proportions.

Now, lest I cast the first stone, I am blogging about this, I tweet, and I facebook. But I use these things as methods of spurring discussion. I left facebook for 3 months and came back to promote and event I was part of. I don’t check it daily, and I don’t depend on it as my sole means of interaction with those I care about. I tweet multiple times a day, but that doesn’t mean I don’t call people and actually listen to their voices to see what’s up.

apps.

The fact that there is in fact an app for just about anything, on a technological level, is astounding! We are truly advancing as a species at the speed of light. But at what cost? 10 years ago If I wanted to know about a neighborhood, say Boston’s North End, I would get on the train, and go there. I would lose myself in the history, the architecture, and decide what stops I wanted to make based on intuition, and curiosity. Today, you load an app, and your whole trip is decided by who paid the most to be reviewed the best on said app. Your trip is outlined by another app. which train, which street to turn left. Your restaurant, whichever has the most stars. Your dessert, the flashiest bakery, and your entertainment all decided by some IT people from Cupertino.

For example, using Yelp, You would be pointed to Bricco, or Lucca for dinner, Mike’s pastry on Hanover, and probably ImprovAsylum for entertainment. The thing is, these places are “famous” and yes they will satisfy your hunger, sweet tooth and need for laughter. But, having lived in the North End for 4 years, unless you explored you would never think to drop by Al Dente, or Bova’s Bakery, because they are off the beaten path. You will never have the joy of discovery or the feeling of disappointment, because your life is being GPS’d for you in ever facet.

We don’t shake hands anymore. We conduct business via email, pdf’s, and conference calls. Which yes may be more cost effective, but is truly turning us into robots more and more.

I don’t need an app that can do my shopping for me.

People need to experience…people.

We are no longer in the business of meeting new people via human interaction. The person with the most friends on facebook doesn’t know how to have a real conversation.

And let me continue to be clear, I am including myself in the epidemic.

attachments.

Last night I saw my nephew who flew in for a few days, and within 10 minutes of sitting with him and his lovely girl, I had texted 4 times and checked my email/bbm. retarded. rude. and pathetic.

This has probably happened to you. You get out of a car, and can’t find your phone…you freak out for a minute, pat down all your pockets, rip open your purse, start scouring like a ravenous crackhead looking for a fix. And then you find it…all is saved. you didn’t lose your only conduit to the world.

Or what about when you actually lose your phone? You truly feel devastated. As if  there was no way to survive this post-apocalyptic world without your buddy list in your back pocket. “I remember wayyy back when…over 10 years ago (no! surely not! no one was alive back then!)…when in developed countries, ony 18% of the population carried phones on their person. Today? a staggering 97%!

Tweets.

We are so attached to technology that without it we probably feel like we have nothing to offer, so we surround ourselves with mobile phones, constantly updating every move, failing to realize that we spend half our time typing about the other half. I know people who tweet pretty much every hour on the hour.

“I’m at this location”, “Just took a bite of a sandwich”, “Just took another one”, “Wiped my mouth” ,”Having fun with this sandwich” “mmmm, sip of soda” ect…I fail to understand the necessity of having that be such an integral part of your life. And tho I don’t do it to such an extent, I am definitely guilty of doing it too much.

Why? I think some people fear losing touch with society, or advances, and therefore need to be at the forefront of the newest fad. It’s not just twitter, it’s everything from the internet as a whole, to handheld video games, to blackberries, iphones, Palm’s ect…

Status Update.

What if we actually contacted friends and found out what they were doing, how they were feeling. What a novel concept.

What if  we made plans with people to meet weekly, monthly, even yearly (they’re called reunions) and just spent time, face to face catching up, making plans, interacting on a human level.

A friend of mine told me she has a cell phone that is just a cell phone. She talks and texts. That’s it. And she even avoids texting when at all possible. This floored me. I couldn’t fathom how someone could go through life without having the latest weather reports, sports scores, friends facebook updates, google maps, tweets ect…

Then I figured out.

She was just being human.

Something that needs to be a priority once again.

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