On a clear afternoon in September, a 46-year-old train engineer was playing a frantic game of thumb-hockey on his cell phone as he shot a text message to his 15-year-old friend. Seconds later, the Metrolink train he was operating collided head-on with Union Pacific freight locomotive, exploding into a twisted tornado of steel that killed 25 people and left 40 more seriously injured.
I've heard it said that the problem with youth is that it's wasted on the young. While I'm not voting for John McCain, I'm one member of Generation X who was downright angered by commercials attacking the Arizona senator for not being overly computer literate. Mocking a war hero and lifelong public servant because he doesn't throw away life sending e-mails and text messages reflects not only the worst arrogance of my generation, but a far more corrosive rot eating away at the human spirit in our increasingly hyper-connected world.
It doesn't take a prophet to look around and realize that people my age and younger are being swallowed by a bottomless hole of technological illusions - a blinking universe of instant feedback that's rendering its victims genuinely horrified to be alone with their own thoughts. Among the greatest monsters in this purgatory of self-reliance is a thing called MySpace.
Like nearly every member of the media, I have a MySpace profile. It allows anyone plugged into the World Wide Web to view pictures of me, know my interests, read comments others send to me and read my worthless personal blogs. Even better, if you let this beast scrawl its number on your digital forehead, you can even be my "friend." Once you're in my friend network, the two of us can have an enduring, meaningful relationship by e-mailing quick, grammatically sloppy sentences to each other.
If you're in my network, there's no amount of distance or reality that can ever separate us. I will always be aware of what you're doing and how you're feeling - that is, as long as you constantly update your mood status and your activity status. For example, at any given moment I can log onto my computer and see that "Raheem is: On his way to work. Mood: Depressed."
Just a few sips from this wire-driven, mind-melting pot can spawn a fierce addiction in people. It can leave them dependent on a viral orgy of shared experience. There's no longer a need for self examination. There are no more black hours of the night where only personal demons will chat with you. The gleaming carnival of static and self-affirmation is always there; just click the mouse and gorge yourself on virtual human contact. And as you look into the monitor's empty mirror, the little tweaks and imperfections that create a unique reflection begin to vanish. The comments and categories start running over each other. The profiles all look the same.
In the 1932 film, "The Bride of Frankenstein," tormented director James Whale offered a glimpse into his own private hell in a scene where a blind man tells Frankenstein's monster, "Before you came, I was alone. It is bad to be alone." The monster - in all of Boris Karloff's growling, robotic, silver screen brilliance - replies, "Alone bad. Friend, good!" In many ways this is a timeless lament. But is it always "bad" to be alone?
John McCain found himself alone in a Vietnamese prison camp where he was threatened, tortured and dragged through the most excruciating gutters of his own physical, mental and psychic purgatory. As he puts it, he was shown his breakpoint. He learned what he loved. He was humbled. The result was a lifetime of service to others.
While most of us will never experience the kind of world-altering isolation McCain faced at the hands of the Viet Cong, the miracles of technology are causing even the simplest forms of isolation to be alien. Bluetooths, Blackberries, iPhones, Facebook and MySpace are gradually replacing silent walks in the park, meditative drives at night, shadowboxing or even reading a good book. They insulate us in a streaming network of voices. They allow us to create our own personal techno-hives where listening to a vague, collective drone is far more soothing than the alternative of our own true selves.
At the dawn of modern science, a great poet warned, "And Man, having enslaved the elements, remains himself a slave." Perhaps this was unavoidable. But even a slave casts a true shadow, and has a true reflection. As today's young people grow more dependent on the buzzing cacophony of super links, they're in danger of losing far more than the type of concentration it takes to prevent a train from derailing - they're in danger of losing the awesome will power and fierce determination that can only be born from scars of a solitary existence.
| Scott Thomas Anderson |