The Lemon Life | online magazine offering a fresh perspective on post-grad life.

Words by: Tim Matson

Image by: Lin Pernille ♥ Photography

If you google the words “technology isolates people,” you get back over two million hits.  Two million.  That’s a lot of web chatter.  See for yourself.

It is believed by many that technology is isolating: that by having online networks of friends, we never leave the computer screen to, you know, meet someone in person; that by having thousands of songs and videos at our finger tips, there is no reason to go to a cinema or a concert where you might, possibly, see other people; that by having text messages and e-mail, you never have to actually talk to someone in person or even on the phone; that by having abbreviations like ttyl, brb, and rotflmao you don’t really even have to talk like a person anymore.

And I admit I am guilty of technological abuses of this kind.  I have e-mailed or texted people when I didn’t want to talk to them.  I have facebook stalked folks from high school, especially the kids who were a lot cooler than me (we all do that, right?).  I have even instant messaged a roommate who was no more than ten feet away from me (though, in my defense, I probably did that for the novelty of it, not because I am really that lazy).

But, in defense of technology, I blissfully report that it has kept my current relationship alive.

I have been in a long-distance romance for over a year and a half, creeping up on two years in April.  We live a plane ride or two apart.  In the same continent and close time zones, but different from in high school when I had to spend six agonizing weeks an hour and a half’s drive away from the then-apple-of-my-eye.

Thus, the past months have been filled with many phone calls, webchats in various platforms, text messages, and e-mails.  While I can’t say definitively that were it not for the advent of this technology, our relationship would not have made it, it certainly has smoothed the way.  These gadgets have made it possible for us to be involved in each other’s daily lives, or at least to feel like it, despite the distance.  Were this an earlier time, we’d be waiting, pining for letters from each other: there would be no way to hear about her headache, her good day at work, or her fantastic new shoes.

Our phone bills have been sky high for the last year, but that seems like a relatively small price to pay to speak to, online chat, or video conference with your main squeeze on an almost-daily basis.

Maybe technology and social networking does lead to people to isolate, to choose the virtual world around them over the actual world around them.  But I’ll take a text message from my sweetheart over no message at all.

But, seriously, can you imagine if Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy had text messaging?  How do you make an emoticon for arrogance, conceit, and selfish disdain?  Is that like ;-{  ?

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