Addiction has become an ever-more fascinating concept in the digital age. The common culprits such as alcohol, heroin and meth seem crude and boring compared to post-9/11 contenders like Xbox, smart phones and gadgets. It strikes me that many of my friends and acquaintances confess to feeling increasingly lonely and isolated. The one thing all have in common is that their significant other for many years has been a cell phone. The constant artificial stimulation, notifications, and validation provided by gadgets has trumped the sound of a loving voice, the hand that holds and the stillness I took for granted growing up in a house with a dial phone that hung on the kitchen wall.
Yes, our large plastic phone hung on the wall, its cord twisted and worried as my sister and I got every bit of distance out of it in a fruitless effort for privacy. I was made achingly aware of my cheerleader sister’s popularity when the phone rang for her with more urgency than it did for me. Luckily I was free of its weak sphere of influence as soon as I slammed the screen door and headed out into a world full of small adventures that I learned to appreciate for their own merits, not the number of likes they would get on facebook. My answering machine was actually my mother, and her garbled interpretations were much funnier than voice-to-text malapropisms. One could actually withhold or divvy out information in reply to, “Did anyone call?” that would torture the inquirer more effectively than no bars on a cell phone. The lingering, false strain to remember the exact message, the intonation of the voice and any background information that I could provide could drive a family member mad.
We lived so far out in the country that our phone was hooked up to a “party line.” This didn’t mean that we partied like rock stars, of course. It meant that our neighbors, pig farmers and staunch German Methodists, could listen in on our conversations. Yes, that disconcerting click or unfamiliar throat clearing during the awkward new boyfriend call was old school voyeurism that taught us that privacy is a crucial component of civility. If I were ever daft enough to divulge an embarrassing secret on that active party line, half the county would know it the next day. While most plugged-in addicts strive for infamy and notoriety these days, even setting themselves on fire in hopes of going viral, I was taught that only barbarians sought attention by behaving badly.
As the younger generations interact with tech more than with peers, brief and dysfunctional Tinder-style hookups replace deep, committed relationships. Even so, most of these kids won’t ever know what true loneliness feels like because they have no role models for solid marriage or long-lasting friendships which require them to disengage with any regularity from their couch and console. One can’t miss what one never had.
I envision fashionable “unplugged” treatment plans sprouting up to tackle gadget addiction, and governmental intervention to punish those whose addiction affects productivity. Taxing data usage would launch us into a new economic boom. Getting together for coffee and cell phone addiction stories in the back room of an old church will be a sobering experience for all of us.