Binding Technology

It's World Information Society Day today ~ a day targeted at raising global awareness of societal changes brought about by the Internet and new technologies. It also aims to help reduce the Digital Divide. And I can't help but wonder has technology brought us closer, or has it driven us apart in some remote and skewed way? 

I personally can count the number of times that Ben and I actually speak on the phone - Christmas Eve, the night he was dreadfully ill and awake at 1 to take his meds, the day he quit his job and the other night when after 4 weeks of missing him, I decided to reply a text with a call instead.  

I went into work Friday to an email on Facebook from my eldest cousin. A short one saying thanks for following his blog and that he trusts all is well. And for the life of me, I cannot recall the last time we actually spoke on the phone.  

I have been putting off ringing up another relative of mine to ask how she is, thinking time has not passed sufficiently and if she'll be alright to speak on the phone on such a delicate, sensitive issue. I have been telling myself I could always drop her an email instead and I really should get round to it this week. 

In my small office of 3 persons, you can almost never hear a spoken word being exchange. But that doesn't mean the 3 of us are so lost in our own worlds - we're not. We're on Yahoo Messenger from the time we clock in right up till the time we clock out. We even say our "byes" for the day on it. 

Today brings to mind this interview question posed to me many moons ago, on how I would see the move of technology - GPRS, 3G, etc change my life. I had said then, it would be great cos I would then be able to see my kids whilst I drive from one meeting to another, and ask how their day went, almost as if we were in the same room. 

Technology was meant to bring the world closer, shrink the geographical distances. I must say, on that note, it has done a mighty fine job as I keep tabs of my friend's trip to Paris and another and her flu bout in LA. But yet, why do I feel sometimes so removed from everyone else? 

Have we managed to somehow sacrificed certain aspects of human connection; that is sight, sound and touch? Replacing them with smileys, 450-text-character-catch-ups (ala SMS, Facebook status update and Twitter), emails and blog musings? If that really is the case, and it has been proven to be so in so many instances, then today is really not a day that we should be commemorating in joy then is it?

In fact, it should then be a day where we pull out all the cables and wires, don black and mourn the passing of a life as we knew it.  

One where people drove miles and miles to go home and see their family cos it's been too long and the voice can't replace the ties anymore.  

One where people picked up the phone when they had joy to share or sorrow to unburden.  

One where people sat down to have a conversation over a meal, both done at the same table, not you at your own and me at mine.

World Information Society Day - Sure, I've got tonnes of information at the tip of my fingers these days. But what's the point when I have been reduced to a society of ONE?!