As a kid, we would pull into the service station, wind down the window and someone would ask "how much?"
Fill her up.
While the car was being filled, the attendant would wash the windscreen and potentially even check the oil level, if asked or they thought it might be needed. Most of the time, there was friendly banter going back and forth, with random stories told to bring a smile to the face.
This is back when people mattered.
These days it is quite different, where we are increasingly moving toward a culture of compartmentalized self-service, where not only do we not interact with people directly, we are also using online services where we don't even see people at all. Some people prefer it this way, as conversation with strangers can be awkward, yet many don't seem to realize that it is a developed skill and its development has implications on other aspects of our lives that we value, like personal relationships.
Randomly, a couple of times today the change in culture due to corona has come up, with some people hoping things don't go back to before where they have to for example, get handed a receipt instead of take it themselves and others, hoping that there will be a return to human connection, even to a higher degree.
I am hoping for the latter, as I have the personal understanding that we are social animals that have evolved to have certain practices that enrich our lives, like human contact. What I find interesting is that some people seem to discount this, even though they have already likely benefited from it. From birth, parents are wired to interact with their children, holding them close and kissing and blowing on their scrapes and bruises to make them feel better. If you heard of a parent that refused to hug their child, you would likely think it strange.
This is part of the socialization of children into adulthood and even if we can survive without, out bodies are conditioned for human contact. Denying contact leaves the body wanting which is why studies have shown that a little contact, like handing over change in a shop, improves the rating of customer service.
However, we have an increasing number of ways we can avoid dealing with people directly, without considering the cost of doing so. People want an easy experience, yet there is far more drama these days than there once was and it spills out into the world globally. We are no longer very good at building and maintaining trusted relationships and perhaps are not very good at relationships at all. Relationships are skill-based systems and those skills are learned from childhood and mature as we do, but when we avoid the practice of building them or only build them in engineered and manipulated environments, they will not mature to be well-rounded skills and when applied to complex environments like the real world, will fail.
Yet, even if we avoid that real world, millions of years of evolution has made us seek for relationship connection and when we do not find it in humans, we will put a surrogate in its place. This surrogate might take the form of a game, a streaming service or perhaps some kind of addiction - but tends to be a consumptive act, where reciprocity in the relationship is not required. Essentially, we are creating a "partner" that is our on-demand slave, putting us in the role of master of what we consume. Yet, because of our craving for that relationship, we are actually a slave of consumption itself.
So much of the consumer goods and services look to leverage our need for connection by making us the center of attention, making us feel liked, like we are in a relationship with someone, with that someone being unknown, yet familiar. Look at the idea of Instagram where there are accounts that are just a stream of selfies and imagine it from a real-world experience.
Back in the day, "slide nights" were a thing where people would go on holiday and then invite close friends around to show them their holiday snaps. These can be boring affairs since a lot of what is shown and the associated stories were "had to be there" affairs, but the social aspect of spending time together, eating, drinking and chatting about what is important to each other had value. Imagine the same scenario where someone invited you around to see some pictures, only to find out that they were all selfies, with the odd lunch and fancy dinner thrown in between. Would you find it strange?
Probably - but online, you might enjoy it and get the sense that it is personal, that you are getting a glimpse into someone's life, building a relationship - even though everything is one-sided and from a singular perspective of the person uploading the content, no matter how many angles of their chin they might present. It is a replication of a relationship to elicit the feeling response of building a relationship, yet there is no social learning, no skill development taking place.
It doesn't matter how many selfies we double-tap, it doesn't make us better in real world social interactions, it doesn't make us better friends, partners or parents. There is no "human" in it.
As said, I am hoping that whatever happens in the future world with viruses and technology, there will be an increasing return to human interaction and the development of skills that enhance our experience together. In my opinion, a lot of the social problems we face in the world currently are driven by our inability (lack of skill) to negotiate a life of increasing complexity. We can avoid it by withdrawing into our compartmentalized worlds, but doing so will leave our human circuitry unfulfilled.
In my opinion, failure to reconnect with each other or becoming reliant on consumption to fill the gap, will increasingly place in a simulated environment where we are divided and conquered, by choice. Though, perhaps this sounds appealing to the increasing number of people who are seemingly unable to deal with the world of humans and are wanting to enter the life of a robot, conditioned to follow the code.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]