Has Technology Created a Society without Faces?

I get a lot of emails – many of us do. Email is such an efficient yet invisible form of communications. There are so many forums on the Internet where we can communicate with complete strangers, never having seen their faces.

It used to be only on online chat forums that this completely faceless form of communications ruled.

But now I’m finding more and more people are willing to actually do business without ever actually meeting the person or persons they are to be working with.

I know the days are long since gone where you’d conclude a deal with just a handshake. But at the very least, that handshake gave you the opportunity to look your business associate in the eyes.

By not seeing the people we are conducting business with, we’re creating a very different society than what we have been used too.

Sure, there’s Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and the other social networks with their walls of faces. But even social networking isn’t real socializing in the real world. Though it may lead to that in some cases, for most of us on the social networks, we’ll never shake hands in real-time.

Email and social networking lacks the character in a person’s voice. There’s no body language to see if everyone really is on the same page. And there’s no small talk.

That’s the real loss. For years cultural anthropologists have told us we are social animals. We thrive in communities driven by many social interactions -- surrounded by small talk.

Small talk, water cooler chatter, even a simple smile and a warm “good morning” are all disappearing thanks to the faceless society of today.

It’s so easy to send off a quick email to a friend or colleague, asking about the wife, their kids or them – but do you really expect them to give you a detailed answer? If they do, do you respond with heartfelt sympathy or concern?

Usually not – email and social networking isn’t the forum for doing such things. If you were really concerned, you’d call and ask – but as our society becomes more digital and less personal, that phone is getting all the heavier to lift.

And that’s really very sad, tragic even, because it is the social interaction in life which makes life worthy of living.

There is an element of socializing in social networking, but rarely does it actually involve getting together in the real world, and actually talking. Just scroll through your friends, followers and fans on your social networks and count those you’ve met in person, and for most, it’ll be a very small percentage.

Sure, we have those funky characters called emoticons which are used to represent our feelings, but these can’t really replace the real thing. And we have live streaming video, using services like Google Hangouts and Skype, but even these aren’t the same as being in the same room, and sharing the same experiences.

And that is what is really missing from our technology driven world today – the sharing of real world experiences.

Although technology is bringing us all closer together, because we can talk, text, post, tweet and stream from anywhere to anywhere, technology is stealing away one of the vital elements of being life – human contact.