This article explores the paradox of feeling disconnected despite being hyper-connected online. It examines the phenomenon of hoarding digital connections and experiences, and contrasts it with the value of impermanence and letting go.
It seems that the more digitally connected we become, the more disconnected many of us feel from the real world. However, there’s another cost to being chronically online: We’ve created an environment in which every relationship and experience can be recorded and preserved in perpetuity.Seven years ago, I met a fun-loving Italian dude at a Las Vegas hostel. We had two conversations and exchanged Instagram handles before I left.
Now, because we follow each other online, I know his running schedule, his girlfriend’s name and the last thing he ate on his trip to Bali. I can look up my ex-girlfriends on LinkedIn and see where they work. I have an abandoned WhatsApp chat with a Polish woman I danced with once in a Berlin discotheque.I will never see these people again. Yet our faint digital relationships prevent me from losing them completely. These are the tenuous connections that overload our lives. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s research on primate neocortex sizes offers some insight on this phenomenon. His findings suggest that human brains evolved to manage onlyOf course, I’m not decrying all digital connections. Because of the internet, I was able to hold a video call with my nephew when he moved to Japan. When I visited Norway,allowed me to meet with some old friends in Oslo. Those examples are different; our digital interactions were mere extensions of our real-life bonds. I’m talking about the digital version of hoarding — hoarding moments with our cameras and hoarding connections with people we’ll never see again.In Japanese culture, there’s a concept called “mono no aware” — a sensitivity to the ephemeral nature of existence. It suggests that life’s finite nature, while sorrowful, actually heightens the beauty of our experiences and relationships. In short, losing adds meaning. I’ve found resonance with this idea since I started using a flip phone last year. I couldn’t stand my iPhone anymore. My YouTube use was out of contro
TECHNOLOGY SOCIAL MEDIA DIGITAL CONNECTION HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS EPHEMERALITY
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