For a few years, I have been spending several weeks in Sifnos, an island in the Aegean Sea in Greece that I really appreciate. The other night, I was having a glass of white wine at The Yellow Bicycle, Kitrino podilato, from its Greek name. Located in the heart of the village of Artemonas, this pastry shop is housed in a house worthy of Hobbit country with its small rooms and whitewashed walls that look like marshmallows, not to mention its beautiful outdoor terrace, where it is good to contemplate the starry sky.
When I had just arrived, I noticed the four young women who were seated nearby on a semi-circular bench made of local stone. What catches my attention is the silence that reigns at their table. They do not look at each other, do not speak to each other, or barely. It’s that all four are focused on their smartphone. The only thing I see moving are their index fingers, which, like windshield wipers, move intermittently to probably scroll through a flood of images or text messages that they mechanically consult.
Sometimes one of them leans towards one of her friends to show her her screen. The other then nods, displaying a slight smile or saying a few words before returning to his own screen. For almost an hour, the time I left the place, they never got off their glass and metal tyrant who was holding their attention hostage.
anti-human shields
If I was so attentive to this scene, which in fact is not unusual, it is probably because I had just read in quick succession two remarkable works by Sherry Turkle entitled alone together And Eye to eye. In these essays, the anthropologist and psychologist demonstrates, based on hundreds of examples and testimonies collected, to what extent the smartphone has come over time to play the role of protective shield for those and those who hold it almost permanently in their hands, even if it means sleeping with it in the evening.
By definition, a shield is used to protect against attacks, blows from a real or potential enemy. Here, the enemy for the one who hides behind his protective screen, his cell phone, is the other, any human being who would try in a slightly too direct way to have physical contact with him, to look at him in the eyes, to speak to him in order to have a true and authentic conversation; in short, to establish what in a world almost bygone was called a human relationship.
Thus, the function of the smart phone is increasingly to create a protective bubble around its owner, to mediate his relations with the world in general and especially with other human beings, while protecting him from the spontaneity of a real conversation that might feel too invasive.
This distancing from others also makes it possible to avoid disagreements, frictions, conflicts of all kinds, but also the uneasiness and unforeseen events that can arise as so many destabilizing agents. Having a real conversation in real time and face to face therefore represents too great a risk of emotional exposure and can only generate unnecessary stress for these people weakened by all these years spent in their digital cocoon.
Newspeak 2.0
So long live the world of pictures and videos uploaded in bulk on social networks in which wireless enthusiasts try to convince themselves that if a picture is worth a thousand words, thousands of images of their person and their daily life will come very good at expressing their inner selves as well as their deepest feelings.
The same is true with the text messages that these hyper-connected people machine-gun each other with the agility of their two thumbs. Thus prisoners of the tools offered to them by these dehumanizing technologies, they maintain exchanges which at most resemble simulacra of conversations which, composed of emoticons, abbreviations and a starving vocabulary, would have made creators blush with envy. Newspeak spoken of in George Orwell’s famous dystopia. With such means placed at their disposal, they quickly get used to writing banalities, repeating a thousand clichés or commonplaces: “Té ou ? “, ” What are you doing ? », «Cool !», «See you later!»…
To hell with “open questions”, as Sherry Turkle calls them, where two beings take the time to talk about the complexity of life and their emotions, to develop a real bond, to share intimate feelings and sometimes a few secrets. Asking someone “How are you?” “, taking the time to listen to her while looking her in the eyes or holding her hand now represents, in the all-digital world in which we are immersed, a rare feat that could make us believe that this ability to identifying with others and what they feel called empathy should henceforth be recognized as a fading faculty.