You’ve probably seen this too. You’re at dinner – perhaps
even a nice place. You’re enjoying the food, some wine, the conversation and
then you spot people at a nearby table staring at their respective electronic
devices.
Just last weekend in fact, I saw this. My wife and I were
walking together along Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was a
beautiful, warm evening. The sidewalk cafes were crowded with people, the air
was filled with delicious smells of food. A street performer on guitar was also
actually playing a fairly respectable version of the Talking Heads’ song
“Psycho Killer.”
We were trying to decide where to eat. Those of you who have
been up and down Main Street know the options abound. Seafood? Italian? Indian?
French Bistro? As I peered into the window of a fairly high-end restaurant, I
saw a couple seated at a white cloth covered table. The table was adorned with
sparkling silverware, tall wine glasses with generous pours and directly in
front of the man and the woman were dueling iPads.
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| "Let me look deep into your...screen." |
I stopped, of course, to take a picture and to comment to my
wife, “Check this out. A night out on the town to….play Candy Crush.”
Now, I honestly don’t know if they were playing Candy Crush
or not. I didn’t get that close. I didn’t want to intrude on their moment
together – one they were sharing by completely ignoring each other. Instead
they were focusing with a somewhat lost, trance-like gaze on their glowing,
64-bit 9.7-inch high resolution retinal displays.
I realize this is not a crime. Plenty of people, for
example, sit in complete silence across from each other. They simply chew their
food, say nothing, and take in the ambiance. The same result is accomplished, I
suppose.
My question, though, is this: Are these amazing devices –
smart phones, tablets and now watches – revolutionizing our world in just about
every way imaginable and simultaneously destroying human social interaction?
I will refrain from hazarding an educated guess to this
piercing question. Instead, I’ll simply suggest you go to Google (preferably
when you are not out to dinner with someone) and type in “smart phones killing
social interaction.”
You will see an array of results, including scholarly
articles that are predictably hard to understand. You will see other articles
that make the point that, yes, in fact these devices are electronic heroin.
We’re addicted to them. We can’t do anything until we get our fix and we’re
losing the ability to interact with others because, frankly, phones are just more
important.
So, back to the couple at the window table in the fancy Ann
Arbor restaurant. I’m thinking that they were Facebook friends and when they finally
sat down together and realized that the other was an actual flesh and blood person,
they both panicked, lunged for their iPads and logged in. Once their anxiety of
being together “in person” subsided, they began exchanging messages with each
other from across the three-foot-long table.
I’m thinking that it went like this:
Woman:
(typing in the “What’s on your mind?” box) Wow. Menu looks amazing!
Man:
(seeing her comment post in his newsfeed, he first “likes” it then he types)
Totally. Thinking about appetizers. Do you like Carpaccio?
Woman:
Hmmm. Not sure. What’s that? It is soup?
Man:
No! OMG. It’s raw meat. Really yummy.
Woman:
Gross! I’m a vegetarian. You don’t know me at all… L
Man:
Sorry! But it wasn’t on your profile. So I assumed…
Woman:
Whatever. I’m jumping over to Twitter.
Potential Solution
Clearly, this is bad, but don’t despair because I think I
have an answer. I thought of this the other day, so it’s not totally worked
out.
Let’s assume, though, 10 more years go by and more and more
people lose the ability to interact with real live people. My observation is
not scientific, but what I see in the world is people walking, sitting, and
standing while simultaneously they are both peering at their phones and
listening with their ear buds snuggly nestled in their ears.
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| "So glad we have this time to catch up....on Facebook." |
I say let’s develop an app that can read social situations.
It will take in both auditory and visual information. This data will be routed
to a cloud database where it will be subject to analysis, sophisticated parsing
techniques and feedback algorithms. In essentially “real time” the app will
provide us instructions through our earphones that tell us what we’re supposed
to say and do.
So, if at dinner for example, two people are logged into the
app at the same time, then, voila, they
will be having what historically has been called “a conversation” in two shakes
of a lamb’s tail.
For instance, we may struggle to know how to respond to a
question like, “How are you?” To help with this, the app’s synthesized voice
will provide us with lines, a la Cyrano de Debergerac, without missing a beat so
that we can reply with , for example, “Pretty good. Thank you” in our very own
calm, human voice.
I’m excited about this. I’m thinking a good name might be
something like “iHuman” or “iCanTalk.” Maybe “iHaveBrain” is too sarcastic. But
it’s catchy, don’t you think?
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