The Re-Disintegration of Man

Photo by Jeremy Keith

I must confess I have a (huge) weakness for new tech. I don't have the money for new tech, which is probably good, but I am the guy who will make a special trip to Best Buy in order to ogle at the new electronical toys on display, and to learn their functions to the point that I can do a better job of selling the device than the salesperson. (Somehow the thought of the thousands of other hands that have touched those devices doesn't bother me, but that is another issue for another time.)
I finally had the money last year to upgrade to my first smartphone, an Android-powered cutting edge piece of electronic awesomness with the feel of power in its glass-faced slab. Oh, how I loved it. I now know why Wall Street brokers pull their phones out in public and look conspicuously over their glasses at them. Smartphones are the new Rolexes. You own them to show them off, to a degree. However, about two months after I got it and it was customized so completely that I had truly made it mine, I began to notice something that I found not only unusual but downright disturbing in it own way.

My big, expensive, high definition, multi-gigabyte-rocking desktop computer had remained practically untouched since getting my new phone.

Maybe it shouldn't have seemed unusual, but it was definitely disturbing. I paid good money for that desktop; it is a workhorse for my artistic and cinematic pursuits (there is an amazing high-end movie and graphic design software suite loaded on it at the moment). And there it sat, for a long long time without me even touching it. It hit me later on too that I had been that way after first purchasing the new desktop. It was my everything device. It could do and did do whatever I asked of it. But suddenly my new phone could do the same, and it was more portable and I could chill on a sofa with it instead of sitting in an office chair. So, boom! the adjustment was made.

Last October I wrote a piece titled "The Schizophrenic Man" in which I attempted to show the effect of modern life and technology on human beings and how both have led us to separate our lives into discrete little boxes of happenings, with no relation one to another. The example used was that of a campfire being divided into functions of light and heat with the respectiv inventions of the light bulb and the radiator. The organic whole was split in a division of convenience.

Here I would like to follow the same logic, except in reverse. As human beings, despite our propensity for divisions and quarrels, we desire union and reconciliation. We long for integration in ourselves and our families, for having our act together. And unfortunately for us as a species, we think we have found that reintegration, in the shape of the computer.

First it was the personal computer, the invention of which ushered in a new era of word usages like "productivity" and "synergy," "convenience" and "affordability." It was the wonder machine, capable of complex mathematical equations at the same time as playing a virtual card game, chatting online with someone in Russia, and rocking a favorite playlist. The "productivity" part may have been debatable, but the rest was good fun.

Then it was the evolution of a reliable and cost-effective wireless network for mobile phones, exploding into high gear in the early 21st century and showing very few signs of slowing down even now. Everyone had a cell phone, and by the same token had a crappy little camera to snap crappy little pictures with. Texting became the new cool and talking on the phone became so over-forties-ish.

Then Apple practically singlehandedly invented the stylish smartphone market with the iPhone, combining everyone's favorite functions into a sleek and portable package and selling it at a nominally affordable price. Then they reinvented the portability part by creating the iPad, thus putting the larger screen everyone apparently wanted onto a portable computer.

And the best part, or so the telecom companies would have you believe with their ubiquitous advertising, is that everything is now connected. Everything is unified, streamlined, enmeshed and instantaneous. If you don't believe it, look at the line for the front counter at a McDonald's. Everyone has their phone out. Everyone is tapping away. Everyone is connected.

We have been beguiled into a facsimile of integrity. Suddenly we don't have to soul-search to find our problems and errors, in order to find the root cause of our divisions. We have effected the final divorce, of putting "us" into one box and our "integrity" in another. The device in our hands, on our desks, in our laps, has become our reintegration. We are connected, aren't we? There need not be any work of personal improvement, because we are integrated by virtue of the computer. It goes wherever we go, so it must a part of us. Right?

This attitude is problematic on so many levels, but we will concentrate on the most fundamental. The thing we hold is not part of us. No matter how many times a day we pull it out and start tapping away, no matter how much personalization goes into it, it remains separate from us. It is integrated into its own infrastructure, but by being so integrated, it ironically leaves us behind. Either that, or it demands that we keep up. And boy do we try.

We deserve better than to be fooled by this. I love the convenience and ease of use and connectivity my smartphone allows, but I have to remind myself from time to time that it is only a tool. It must be made to do what I wish, rather than the other way around. One day I realized that I had left home without it on a day-long trip and, after the initial withdrawal symptoms wore off, I found myself enjoying that day more heartily than I had ever enjoyed any day. It proved that my happiness is a part of me, with no relation to the piece of metal and plastic I had left behind.

If we are to be making any divisions at all, if we should keep anything seperate, then it should be those two things. If our tech is our god, our great unifier, our "all in one," then we need a priority shift.