And yet, study after study tells us that we are becoming more isolated and experience feelings of loneliness at ever higher rates. Think about it: It is possible to go throughout the day and never make eye contact with people we encounter on the street; use the self check-out at stores and not interact with a human being; or other than the casual hello, never really sit down and talk with the people with whom we see and work with everyday.
But the fact remains that no matter how many Facebook friends we have or how many Twitter posts we follow, man is a pack animal and we crave human connections. Prisons discovered years ago that the harshest punishment you could give someone was solitary confinement. To be removed from the pack is to experience torture. The internet offered a way out of loneliness because we could always find someone available who was interested in the things that interested us or simply was available no matter the time of day or night.
However, an interesting study published in the Harvard Business Review found that for superficial communication, organizations tend to rely on email. But, for anything considered important, people tended to speak in person. It also found that the performance of a team could be improved by more than 50 per cent, through socializing. Or, a recent Australian study titled Who Uses Facebook?, found that lonely people tend to spend more time on Facebook. This reinforces the notion that while online interactions have value, for nourishment and to thrive we need human contact.
So why are we so reluctant to engage other people? To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld: “Relationships are messy.” People do unpredictable things and unlike with computers we cannot control the interaction or edit things that we have said. We have to accept that sometimes we will say the wrong thing and that is alright because it gives us a chance to build deeper relationships as we work through the pain of maintaining a relationship. It provides a chance for us to grow emotionally.
Technology can help us in many ways, but ultimately the goal is to interact on a personal level. So the next time you are walking down the street or standing in line next to someone, smile or ask a question. At the very least you will have made a friend for the moment.