INTERFACE

"You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion."  
 -HOWARD BEALE, UBS; 1976

The line dividing Internet from television is so fine at this point it's barely visible.  This same line separates computers from telephones.  The "tube" is now a High Definition video screen, or handheld touch screen.  

Does our modern digital access to the people we care about strengthen our connections with them?  Do we better understand our friends based on words and photographic updates on their social networking sites?  There's no right answer to this question, but it's well deserving of our attention.  

Imagine a polar graph; concentric circles each at a uniformed distance from a central zero point.  The center represents face to face human interaction, the original form of personal communication.  The first ring from center represents telecommunications; either traditional telephone or "skype" style video conference calls.  The next represents a hand written letter personally delivered by the postal service.  The 3rd ring represents computer generated e-mail's and cell phone text messages.  The 4th and final ring represents communications via Facebook, Twitter, and the like.  The further you get from the center, the less personal the connection.  It feels like the further your message is broken down to ones and zeros, the less heart-based emotive is transferred.    

Society's addiction to personal communication devices has been well documented here; the way in which a screen becomes an entity held on the same plateau as a living person.  In many cases, these devices take precedence over physical human presence.  Do you ever engage in drawn-out text message dialogues?  Do you feel a certain protective "shield" provided by having a conversation in such a fashion?  Have you experienced any changes in the fabric of relationships with family members or friends by moving communications further towards the outer rings of our polar graph? 

Most of us have access to computers at home and at our places of work.  It's amazing when you step back and take inventory of the people in your field of view focused on phone in hand; in the city it hovers around 50%.  I understand the comfort humankind finds in its handheld communication and GPS systems, but what if some outside force, perhaps in the form of solar storms were to disrupt the operation of satellites responsible for this personal guiding light?

Several years ago I had a conversation about the impending age when our telephones will contain all information and media that make us.  Our entire music and movie collections, rentals, internet, books, magazines, and cable television.  Facebook like interfaces, or "dashboards" become the operating system of this "all-in-one."  All of our preferences, tastes, and property will compile a personality profile.  All of our web activity, purchases, and general consumption will be monitored and calculated to paint a clear definition of us.  Like the scene in Minority Report when Tom Cruise's character walks through the mall barraged with holographic advertisements making sales pitches directly at him based on his shopping history and habits.  This happens currently in the virtual arena.  The web monitors sites you've seen and literally caters its ads to places you've been.  An obvious example of this is Facebook advertising, generated uniquely for you based on your "likes" and your friends.

We are now on the dawn of this "personal pod" era.  With the invention of the "iPad" and exponential advancement in digital technology, within a few years our cell phones will be the epicenter of individual existence.  

Imagine a dock at home, in your car, and at work.  Plug in at home to set your lighting and heating preferences, your music or television, movies or sports.  You're driving down the highway with your phone plugged in, the advertising on the radio, the billboards you drive past changing as you move along; catered to your preferences.  Every thing you buy, every word you say or type placed into a database designed to make you a perfectly predictable consumer.  Of course the device is also a telephone and video camera, easily activated when deemed necessary.  Think of the scenes in The Dark Knight when Bruce Wayne hands Luscious Fox a comprehensive digital map of Gotham, created by harnessing every phone receiver and using the sound to build a sonar grid of the city.

This example is no longer far-fetched or science fiction.  It's simply an example of the possibilities we face in our world of ever increasing technological advancement.  My dialogue on the "pod" topic was more mathematical than imaginative.  Most trends can be predicted with a quick study of history matched with popular culture.  The big brother scenario has evolved from fear of privacy in our homes, to fear of willingly turning ourselves into open books; predictable humanoid consumption units.  

This is not intended to be a lecture on technological dependence, but a commentary on social evolution.  The question is are we better off with our modern tools of communication?  Are our relationships more complete and fulfilling with the abundance of access we currently enjoy?

I will continue to reach out through this medium, but know if I had my choice, I'd prefer to keep it in the center of the graph.