A personal story about staying in touch in the digital age
Approximately one year ago, I decided to pack up my things and move to a different country all by myself. Leaving my parents, my friends, and practically everyone I know behind. I particularly remember the evening before I moved away. The realisation of how far away I’ll be from everyone I know dawned on me, and I remember my mom saying, “Don’t worry, in this day and age, we’re connected all the time anyway.” She then told me about how hard it was when she moved away, without FaceTime, WhatsApp, or Instagram, having to rely on landline telephones and letters to connect with your loved ones. At the time, her words consoled me. However, after a year of only being able to connect with my closest people digitally, I want to talk about how, despite our digital age allowing us to connect in numerous ways, no matter where we are, I never felt more disconnected.
When I was thinking about what to write in this blog, I called my brother over FaceTime to ask him for advice. While we were talking, his wifi started to lag, and suddenly I was looking at a strange constellation of pixels that was supposed to represent my brother. In that moment, I became too aware of the device in my hand, the screen of the device, the pixels on the screen, and the fact that there was absolutely no physical proof of my brother being there with me. I realised how seconds before, my brain had fully blocked out the reality that I was alone in my room. I was not actually talking to the real body of my brother but to whatever the connection between our devices allowed us to perceive. That realisation brought an intense feeling of loneliness. I suddenly hated the fact that I couldn’t distinguish where the device ended and my brother started. He no longer felt real.
After we hung up, I started thinking of all the moments I felt like that. The strange emptiness right after a call, the sudden awareness of the silence and physical space around me, and the reminder that I was the only one in the room. I remembered the intense FOMO I experienced every day when checking my social media and constantly seeing my friends from home hanging out without me, or all the important events I missed since I moved out. Somehow, being connected with everyone made me feel more lonely than ever. But how is that possible? How can the tools that are supposed to make me feel closer to people leave me feeling this far away?
A song I stumbled on, “Figure in the Fields” by The Brazen Youth, captured this feeling perfectly. These specific lyrics stood out to me:
And so, I walk back inside, to find you waiting there, but only on my screen, to find you sitting there, but only digitally [...]
And you are not a figure, and you are not a flicker, you are the daylight, but you exist inside this plastic night.
I felt as if these words were describing exactly what I had been experiencing. The song captures this strange paradox of digital connection, the person on the other end is real, natural, alive as the “daylight”, yet I can only experience them through this artificial light, the “plastic night”. These important people in my life turn into flickers on a screen that can never replace their physical presence.
Marshall McLuhan once said, “The medium is the message.” He argued that the way we communicate shapes the meaning of what we communicate. When I think about the FaceTime call with my brother, McLuhan’s idea suddenly makes sense in a new way. It doesn’t matter that my brother’s face or words reach me through the call. The medium itself, the screen, the Wifi connection, the pixels, change the meaning of his presence. The message isn’t simply that my brother is here with me, but also that my brother only exists here through a device. And as soon as you start being aware of that, it’s difficult to see anything beyond the medium.
I believe this is also why this loneliness feels so brutal. Digital media tries to imitate reality, and it already does it so well that sometimes we actually forget it isn’t real. For a moment, we let ourselves believe that the other person is really here with us. And that is exactly why the moment the illusion breaks feels so harsh. The WiFi lags, the call ends, the screen goes black, and suddenly you land back in your empty room, reminded all over again that you were alone the entire time.
To make a long story short, my point is that even though digital media exists to bring us closer, it can also make the feeling of distance more present than ever. FaceTime, WhatsApp, and social media might give us glimpses of the people we love, but those glimpses are filtered through pixels. They are never fully real.
Resources
Song: “Figure in the Field” by The Brazen Youth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgyTzOrZXaE&list=RDrgyTzOrZXaE&start_radio=1.
Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message” https://we.riseup.net/assets/102142/appadurai.pdf.
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