I think we know too much about each other.
Or rather, I think we know too much about people we don’t really even want to know.
I moved out of my hometown for a reason.
I love some of the folks there, and I appreciate that it shaped me into who I am, but the place itself wasn’t right for me.
So I moved across the country.
But now, thanks to mobile phones, social media, traditional media, which has basically become social media, VR, and AI…
That place that I left is still very much in my life.
I don’t want to be neighbors with the muscle-head who tried to beat me up in high school, but, strangely, with the algorithms the way they are, it’s hard not to be.
Here’s something weird to say out loud as a guy who deeply values connection and community: I think we were better off when we weren’t connected to everyone everwhere all the time.
In reviewing the quasi-arguments that happen online where no one changes their minds and no growth is happening on either side, I gotta say, maybe echo chambers aren’t all that bad.
I can raise my flag in San Francisco and that muscle head back in my hometown can raise his flag in his small corner of the world, and neither us would have to know the other exists. We each get our friends, we each get our views.
But that ship has sailed.
Social media has shrunk the world. The land I put between me and the things (and people) I don’t need to care about has disappeared. Now everything’s in my face.
And yours.
At the risk of sounding like a luddite hermit with tinfoil on the antenna of his TV, I don’t think our species was meant to get information as quickly and as broadly as we do.
We’re a long way from the Pony Express.
Our brains aren’t supposed to process the holiday dinners of 10 different families in 30 seconds. We’re not supposed to know how the tribes in other continents are celebrating their kill. And we certainly don’t need to watch it while it’s happening.
Animal brains with futuristic gadgets.
Not supposed to happen.
But here we are, unable to write something without publishing it, unable to have a moment without recording it, unable to have conviction without public support.
Stepping into heated arguments with people we don’t even know, reviewing photos of people we would never ever move next to, participating in fake discourse, which create emotions that are very very real.
I suppose that’s the part that burns me up.
We get riled up the most by the people we don’t care about: some troll of a troll three thousand miles away.
They hijack our minds for hours, sometimes days. We’ve all been there: screaming in the kitchen at no one, coming up with our best comeback in the shower.
Without that faraway neighbor and his infuriating flag, I’d just be making eggs.
Sounds better to me.
But I’m not sure.
What do you think?
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