Seventy-seven percent of middle-age Americans (35-54 years old) say they want to return to a time before society was “plugged in,” meaning a time before there was widespread internet and cell phone usage. As told by a new Harris Poll (via Fast Company), 63% of younger folks (18-34 years old) were also keen on returning to a pre-plugged-in world, despite that being a world they largely never had a chance to occupy.
I bet this is more about the stress of being constantly available to your boss, your parents, your teachers, your neediest friends than about wanting a world without technology.
I think it’s both that and not having real community ties. We don’t form close associations with each other like back when we had town events, neighborhood gatherings, people belonged to more clubs, recreational groups, labor unions, etc.
I wonder if there was an attempt to ask people about television, too.
True. Though we’re blaming the wrong thing in that case, we don’t have town events and neighborhood gatherings because local communities don’t have the money or a set town space anymore since the public square has been corporatized over the last few decades. Everything’s been monetized, loitering laws have criminalized just hanging out. Real life has the same problem the internet has.
Agreed. I think it’s more that we have been fooled on a superficial level into thinking that online interactions have filled the void (we’re on “social media” after all). So we still recognize that there’s something profound missing from our lives, but what that thing actually is has become kind of obfuscated. The dilemma then becomes whether to 1. blame technology, or 2. blame ourselves individually (“there must just be something wrong with me”). And either way it leads away from the radical solution of rebuilding those local, deep connections with our communities.
I think what people are really missing is being able to feel disconnected.
Like it used to be you’d send an email and you’d get a response tomorrow. Because people would go online occasionally.
Now if I’m not responding to a text within a few minutes people get upset. You’ll see people answer the phone during a movie to say “hey I’m in a movie I’ll call you back”
I’d like to go back to the world of being connected but having a slight delay is ok
But that’s okay today? At least in my social circles it is. Just talk about it to whichever friend you have that demands you answer immediately. They are being unreasonable.
