Tribes and Connections : Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose
March 10, 2008 - ד' אדר ב' תשס"ח by admin
A recent study in Canada has coined a new term – “Disconnect anxiety” – “the various feelings of disorientation and nervousness experienced when a person is deprived of Internet or wireless access.”
Our fear of disconnection is deeply rooted. We formed these behaviors in pre-Cro-Magnon times and nothing has changed.
Even in our age of individualism, we’re still fundamentally social beings who need to belong to our respective tribes and who crave constant connection. Our ability to connect has grown exponentially in recent years and technology has allowed our tribes to be of unlimited size and unrestricted location.
The article in the National Post quotes Prof. Turkle, a psychologist and the author of Evocative Objects says that one young subject told her that “a screen represented hope, hope that life will be more exciting, that it will provide more romance.”
The opposite then applies when the user is off the grid. “If something that’s seen as sustaining is taken away, people grow anxious,” she said. “They feel that nothing is going to happen.”
Prof. Turkle also wonders if this kind of manic communication says something deeper about us: our ability to be alone without feeling loneliness. “One of the gold standards of thinking about a fully developed individual is an ability to enjoy one’s solitude. So that every time you’re alone, you’re not lonely,” she said. “I wonder if we are part of a generation that is not able to be alone.”
Some sociologists see this rampant communication as a return to tribal instincts, with a modern twist. “Rather than people surrounding you in a village, you’re in a virtual tribe,” said Lance Strate, chairman of the Communication and Media Studies Department at Ford-ham University in the Bronx, New York.
“When there were real tribes, people had no concept of individualism. If someone was excommunicated from the tribe, he’d allow himself to wander away and die. He couldn’t imagine life outside of the group.”
