I recently covered the harmful effects of screen time. But like most technology, screens have also improved my life. Let’s explore some of these positives, which come with problems of their own.
When I travel for work, FaceTime connects me to my children. When I'm hundreds of miles from home, I feel impossibly far from my family. Nothing is more important to me than seeing their faces and hearing their voices. There’s a redemption to the warmth and comfort that these video calls provide.
I like to think of these apps and platforms as connective. They unite the sender and receiver despite any real-world obstacles.
Skype and WhatsApp allow me to chat with family and friends overseas, and Instagram can serve as a kind of video telegram that exists in perpetuity. Thinking back to the isolation caused by the COVID-19 lockdowns, where would we be without Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams?
Video communication also appears throughout social media. YouTube brought cinema and documentary into our hands, fracturing visions of a bloated system of channels by transforming mass media into a network of content made by anyone and everyone. As a journalist, I rely on various video platforms to conduct interviews and gather information.
If Facebook lives up to its dreams of a metaverse, these interactions will be immersive. I’m a bit old for Snapchat, but the video messaging function adds levity to conversations. Twitch, X, Discord, and TikTok all contribute to the ongoing advancements of audiovisual two-way communication. Not to mention the luxury of our cellphone cameras. It has been a mere 60 years since Abraham Zapruder captured one of America’s darkest moments on an 8mm camera.
I like to think of these apps and platforms as connective. They unite the sender and receiver despite any real-world obstacles. After all, this is the era of the network, when the narrative of stand-alone humans no longer has legs.
Connective interfaces strengthen social bonds and provide much-needed clarity. There's none of the missing context that hinders letters, texts, and emails — even phone calls can muddle the reality of a conversation. They offer a version of telepresence, the feeling that everyone on the call is closer than possible.
Remote telepresence has caused many interesting outcomes. One is the death of geography. Distance is no longer absolute. This has led to a disintegration of the private space, which has proven disastrous.
Devotion to telepresence has disrupted a far more important experience: presence. It is truly a paradox of our time that the improvement is a fabrication that belittles the original, like meatless burgers and Marxist theory.
This muddies the distinction between the real and the virtual, a pornographization of the connective process, something as simple as small talk at the market, any interaction that slows you down.
A life of constant tele-action is bad for people. It denies us our need for a life without performance or observation. At its worst, it facilitates tele-surveillance. Like the nuclear family, the home is supposed to serve as a private institution apart from the State.
This divide between public and private life is crucial for the health of a civilization. Without this separation, we can easily collapse into a culture of deadening indulgence (“Brave New World”) or a dystopia of authoritarian stricture (“Nineteen Eighty-Four”).
Also, the speed of exchange is immediate. This worsens our servitude to a burnout society.
On the flip side, this remote transmission is nothing short of a revolution in transportation. Society is now an endless practice of live coverage. Real-time connectivity offers each of us a superhuman view of life in all of its complexity. Imagine explaining that to an 11th-century peasant.
So next time you feel overburdened by the pace of technology and the ubiquity of screens, slow down, if you can, and remember the good they can bring to you, that they allow you to meet with anyone, anywhere, in what could almost be called face-to-face.
