CONSULTING · TRAINING · COACHING
Television arrived, and households grew more isolated.
(Apparently, 45% of households in Sweden consist of just one person.)
Smartphones arrived, and people within the same household grew more isolated.
In the old days, people used to visit one another at home.
After dinner, we would go to someone’s house, brew tea and chat. The children played in one room while the adults put the world to rights in another.
After saying “We should get going,” we would spend another half hour talking at the door. There was always so much to say.
Then television arrived.
At first, we gathered at the house in the neighbourhood that had a television. (I remember watching a film starring Orhan Gencebay in a tea garden that seated five hundred people.)
Then everyone bought their own television and retreated to their own home. “Come over tonight” gradually gave way to “Our series is on tonight.”
Still, we were looking at the same screen in the same house. We laughed at the same film, got angry at the same news and fought over the remote control.
Then came the not-so-smart phones. On their small, dull screens, we made calls, sent messages and played Snake.
When the snake hit its own tail, we put the phone down and returned to life.
Then the screens grew bigger (as did our bellies and hips), and the phones became smarter. Once social media made its way onto them, things really changed.
We scrolled and scrolled.
We went from a friend’s holiday photograph to a recipe, then to comments on a match. Two cat videos and three conspiracy theories later, we were scrolling all the way back to the Sumerians.
Now we sit on the same sofa, in different worlds.
“I want to tell you something.”
“Go ahead, I’m listening.”
Eyes on the screen. Finger still scrolling.
We know what someone on the other side of the world had for breakfast. We only half listen to how the person beside us spent their day.
I am not excluding myself. I know all too well where I end up after going online “just to take a quick look.”
How about telling someone one weekend, “Put the kettle on; we’re coming over”?
Our phones could stay in our pockets. The conversation could go on. And when we leave, we could spend another half hour talking at the door…
No, the Sumerians are waiting. (I saw this while scrolling, too.)
