Alone or encumbered?

I'm back in NYC, back in blackberry land. I'm mildly appalled by how pleased I was to see the little beast come back to life when I landed in Paris. I missed it, a little more than I care to admit.

Ben Stein would not approve, judging by his opinion piece in the New York Times a few weeks ago. You probably won't remember Ben Stein the White House speech writer or Ben Stein the economist. You might remember him from his game show, "Win Ben Stein's Money", or from his periodic column in the Times. At the very least, however, you know him as the monotone high school teacher who famously intoned the words, "Anyone? Anyone?" and "Bueller? Bueller?"

The column in question decries the information age as a time when nobody knows how to be alone anymore. We are no longer in touch with ourselves and our humanity, argues Stein, because we are chained to our PDAs and our blackberries. Even if you haven't read the column, you've doubtless come across several variations on this theme elsewhere. It's become something of a truism. But as Ferris Bueller would remind us, "isms... are not good. A person should not believe in an ism, he should believe in himself."

If we take Ferris' advice and reflect on the issue from our own personal experience, does Mr. Stein's argument resonate? Somewhat, I suppose. I certainly feel like I'm in a bubble when I'm on the bus in NYC listening to my iPod. It divides me from people. And you know what? That's why I do it. Anyone who has taken a New York City bus must surely understand this. It is also unquestionably the case that those of us who get our work emails via our phones feel more pressure than perhaps we should to respond now-now-now, irrespective of whether we're on the clock or not.

But let's take a moment to reflect on why we feel the need to stay connected. How did this habit form? For me, and I think for a lot of people, the isolation came first. Rather than constant connectivity being a cause of isolation, as Stein argues, for me connectivity is a symptom. Many more people these days have to travel for business. Whether they're taking flights across country, or living in another country entirely, more and more people are moving away from the Middle America model of a house in the suburbs where you drive your car to work every day. Business travel is lonely -- enormously so, sometimes. Whether you're in a Comfort Inn in Edmonton or a guest house in the bush in Bossangoa, you're surrounded by strangers and there's not much to do. You lack a touchstone to your real life, and you feel disconnected from what's going on in the world. So you turn to the internet. You scroll through your blackberry.

I won't deny that it's habit forming, but I guess I'm taking issue with which is the chicken and which the egg. I think constant connectivity responds to a need before it creates one. Nor do I think business travel / international lives are the only reason people feel isolated these days. I would be far more interested in reading a reflection on that -- on why we're so lonely -- than I would on how addicted we've become to our blackberries.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check my email.