Living in Two Worlds – Almost 9-2-12

Anderson, South Carolina


For many years I declared I would never own or make use of a cell phone, bewildered at why people would want to have an electronic leash connecting them at those moments when connectivity is the last thing they want. Alas, I’ve been caught up in the social transformation wrought by broad-band mobility. No longer having a landline, I find a small non-descript cell phone with unlimited minutes functioning nearly as an umbilicus to the mother planet. In a typical month, I use 4,500 minutes of air time. I admit there’s a bit of dramatic potential in calling someone from the top of St Paul’s Dome in London and describing the city below in real time. Telling envious friends about double rainbows at sunset in Norwegian fjords is a bit of a buzz. For one who spent years working in theater, it’s hard to resist these dramatic moments.

I find it surreal how fast individuals can move their fingers over the tiniest touch screens to pump out text messages. Yesterday while volunteering at registration tables for a large road race, I was amazed at how focused teenagers and adults were on their smart phones, moving their fingers like throw-rods on an old teletype machine. These phones were all out in view with their girl-culture fluorescent cases, rarely out of hand. It’s quite evident there’s another world inside all those phones offering a Siren’s call to their users.

Greek mythology describes the irresistible but fatal call of Sirens wooing lusty sailors to their deaths. The only way to safely hear Siren calls was to be lashed to the mast. Smart phones with their capacity to offer network gaming, shopping, e-mail, audio and video streaming, and the ubiquitous texting have no such natural limits to their use. Smart phones are at least as compelling as Greek Sirens. The most valuable company on earth makes its inconceivable profits from selling smart phones and mobile entertainment apps.

Gaming companies allow hundreds of millions of users to opt out of real life and spend real dollars on virtual dollars; getting lost in imaginary worlds. The most compelling feature of these games is the opportunity to be someone in the imagination one can’t be in real life. Millions exist in basements and internet cafes living cyber lives as soldiers, spies, mobsters, magicians, even great sports legends. A single on-line simulation game was reported to have more than 61 million active users within fifty days of its launch. 1% of the world’s population was hooked on a single game in six weeks! People spend real money to buy content for these free-access games. Profits are staggering. The maker of one game series has over two thousand employees doing nothing but creating alternate worlds for those living in their phones and basements.

My work requires I make use of social media and keep one of those basement computers connected most of the time. The number of requests I get daily from individuals to play assorted games is surreal. Game creators make increasing profits by encouraging players to invite their friends to play, friends who will buy game content once hooked in. Who doesn’t’ want to be the autocratic mayor of a huge city? It will only cost you all your time and a good part of your real dollars. People who are never available in the three-dimensional world of road races and Norwegian sunsets are on-line playing games most of the time.

Most social media platforms allow one to see who is actively on-line. Some never sign off. I look at time-lines and history threads and see individuals are actually playing games for extended periods, not just leaving their computers connected. People once bigger than life to me have left this world in many respects and journeyed to this other strange new cyber world. A long-time friend admits to playing ten games at a time. She admits to maintaining connections with people through gaming platforms, never having once talked by phone or seen them in person. I no longer get her once lengthy and insightful e-mails. We have but infrequent conversations on the phone. Others like her admit to seeing and having fewer contacts with people in the real world; many now feeling depressed and isolated.

Investigative reports depict a whole class of young people living in cyber-cafes. Fast food is delivered directly to tiny booths gamers live in. One room in Tokyo was cut up into sixty tiny windowless cubicles renting for $500 a month each; the landlord taking $30,000 in rents per month from a single windowless room. Stories abound of individuals living for as long as a year in such settings; some going for days at a time without sleeping, completely lost in gaming activities. In Taipei a man died at his gaming console. No one noticed all day until a waitress came to check on his food needs.

In 2010 it’s estimated Americans spent more than $1.5 billion on virtual goods. Virtual goods are game content with no meaning out here in the physical world. Gamers give real money for virtual money to buy game icons or energy credits. In the end they have nothing but a pile of very real receipts for credit card purchases.

I have to own up to my own temptations. The nature of my work has me in contact with people all over the world, and I often find myself pulled by an urge to go home and check e-mail, social media, and messages at weird times. Most of the time I’m successful at resisting, yet I admit to a delicious sense of anticipation when I do go home and check these things. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact my real world is much more likely to meet my deepest needs for socialization, connection, or meaning, even productivity. Creating a cyber-city offers no hope of building real relationships and it does nothing to offer purpose, meaning, or actualization to my life. Wading through an in-box of gaming requests or birthday link requests does nothing either.

Recent reports indicate smart-phone access to e-mail creates scanning behavior counter-productive to work-place effectiveness. Several CEOs with needs for high connectivity have reported shutting off e-mail functions on their phones and gaining a surprising sense of longer more serene and productive days.

I live in the dark ages; my phone doesn’t have the capacity to surf the web, pull off e-mail, or even receive a text message. It does allow me to actually talk to people, if the networks are not overloaded with all of those people who are doing network gaming, shopping, e-mail, audio and video streaming, and the ubiquitous texting. Turning it off does allow me to actually talk to people, especially those standing in front of me.

Our connectivity allows us to feel as if we are almost living in two worlds. Alas, purveyors of broad-band devices haven’t figured out how to upgrade us to ubiquitous living in multiple places at a time. For thousands of years sages and gurus have advised us serenity and peace come from living in the present moment in one place. One of these said, “Be still and know that I am God.” It might just make a world of difference.

Blessings,

Craig C. Johnson