Our Crumbling Communities: Disconnection and Lost Empathy in the Age of Connectivity

This post was in part inspired by yesterday's post I and Thou: The Dynamics of Self in a High Tech World by @richq11. Well worth a read!

Connection and Community

By most measures, it would appear that we — as humans — are better connected than ever. 

Until about 175 years ago, with the advent of "Uniform Penny Postage" in Britain in 1840, people seldom "connected" with anyone outside their local village. Communities consisted of your local town or village, and the people you saw on a daily basis.

BE the light in your own life!

With letter writing becoming affordable to many more people, keeping in touch with distant relatives became a more feasible idea; our "reach" grew. However, sending letters took time, and they still represented a physical exchange between sender and recipient.

Then came the telegraph and the telephone and our "connection paradigm" shifted once more. Although it was a gradual development over decades, the idea of instant communication took root in our society. 

More decades passed, and then came the Internet, and email, and messaging, and eventually live video chats and all the current communication possibilities we have today.

On the plus side, we would surmise that we have made quantum leaps in our ability to stay connected with each other. On the surface, that's very true: The notion that the entire world is no further away than the nearest keyboard certainly sounds true. But is it really?

Distance and DIS-connection

The sad thing is that in spite of all our communication advances, people are actually lonelier and more disconnected than ever. With each technological advance, we have substituted the need to actually spend time with a real flesh and blood person, with a piece of equipment.

The effect is inevitably strange and sad. "Connected" as we may be, when something troubling happens in our lives, those people — who live "inside" our technology — aren't going to show up with a pot of hot stew, a hand to hold and an ear to listen as we pour out our troubles.

So what happens?

We suddenly realize that we are actually very very alone. Which brings us to another "angle" on what @richq11 wrote about: Materialism. In this case, not as a carefully devised scheme by an evil "they," but as an attempt to fill our inner emptiness: When nobody is there to sit with us in our time of need, at least we can go on amazon or eBay or somewhere else and "buy something" that will show up in a box and for a very short time make us feel better. 

The problem, of course, is that the benefits of "retail therapy" are temporary and don't really solve the problem of our disconnect. 

That Can't Be REAL — Can It?

At the White Light Express — which is a small organization dedicated to helping people in need — we experience the effect of our disconnection, first hand.

We get 100's of help and prayer requests from people all over the world, and in "reading between the lines" the pattern is very obvious:

"I have nowhere else to turn..."
"I feel so disconnected from the world"
"I have nobody"
"I am all alone"

In spite of all our connectivity and technological marvels, people are feeling more alone and isolated than ever. What is even sadder is that we often find that we have to teach people how to put down the technology and reconnect with other humans in the physical world.

And the stereotype of a group of Millennials "going out together" and then sitting at the table texting each other rather than talking is not as far-fetched as we might think. 

Loss of Empathy

What is most disturbing is perhaps that we are starting to suffer from a loss of empathy.

Our ability to connect with people and form deep relationships is suffering because "people" (as we used to think of them) are increasingly becoming "things" that live inside our technology. And we don't feel about "things" the way we do about people.

True connection tends to be built around shared experiences and the ability to empathize with another's plight.

Skeptics are quick to point out that "we know the difference," but that's not as true as we would like to think.

Just take the very simple example of "trolls" on the Internet and online bullying. Here's a clear case of people engaging in behavior they would never consider in a face-to-face situation. And how is that possible? Most often because the experience of someone looking a real person in the eyes and interacting with "a user ID on the screen" are two entirely different things.

There is a real person behind that screen name, but our growing disconnect is teaching is to treat them as "things." 

And that loss of empathy is a great human tragedy.

Bright Blessings!

You are not alone!
(Graphic is our own)

The White Light Express Mission Statement:

The mission of the White Light Express is to offer healing and transformation through focused positive intention, meditation and prayer. Right Thought is the first step toward Right Action and consciousness. We believe that “holding the vibration” is a profound task and our divine destiny.  

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