The Death of E-Mail (long live its successor!)

It’s that annual orgy of highway deaths in the USA called ‘Labor Day’, a long weekend in which nearly 40 million easily distracted souls flock to the highways in a lemming-like mad dash to expiate the summer-is-over jitters in a last frenzy of boozy schmoozing with family & friends (a ritual usually conducted with absolutely no solemnity at all over partly-incinerated chicken and beef).

I love this particular holiday. It’s sheer Heaven for me since almost all of the three-brain-cell-morons I am normally compelled to share his planet with have thoughtfully removed themselves from my immediate vicinity and are typically far off somewhere else, exhaustively enjoying themselves to death.

There may still be a few of them zooming around in their noisy, steroid-fed American muscle-cars (and Hardly-Goodson motorcycles…their motto: ‘Loud pipes save lives’), but by and large these machines have been temporarily put out to pasture while their adolescent (or post-adolescent) owners are elsewhere, popping brewskis and porking BBQ with their bonding-buddies somewhere ELSE.

As for me, I spent the morning indulging myself in all the quiet, nonintrusive things I enjoy doing and early-on checked my E-mail accounts to respond to any communicants who may have sent me messages overnight. Funny thing, though. I’ve noticed that rarely, if ever, do I receive any E-mails from personal friends these days. This perplexing development seems to have been concurrent with a disproportionate increase (by an order of magnitude) in commercial messages, marketing contacts, advertising and such.

As someone who seems to have been a natural-born writer-communicator (even before the so-called information age dawned, I was a scribbler who was in the habit of sending out lengthy letters to family, friends and acquaintances), and in the habit of articulating those expostulations comprehensively, often to the extent of several single-spaced typewritten (or word-processor-prepared) pages, the paucity of responses was always a bit puzzling.

By the time E-mail came along in the 80s and was firmly established, I had finally written my last typewritten letter and switched enthusiastically to that format of corresponding, treating it as a medium for the same verbally prolific outpourings of my views, feelings, opinions and/or attitudinal postures that have been making my cohorts nauseous for many decades. At first, I usually received replies that were at least several sentences long. However…and I wasn’t really tracking the developing tide of progress being made in terms of pioneering new forms of E-communication such as Tweets, Instagrams, chat, and what have you…not long ago I began noticing that if anything when I did receive some sort of com from a friend it consisted of a few words, dashed off without regard for any of the normal grammatical requirements or courtesies traditional forms of communicative interaction have long featured. Sometimes, depending upon how much ‘under’ the influence the person sending it was, they can be downright unintelligible and/or as easily to decipher as an Icelandic Viking runic inscription chiseled in crumbling stone.

One person in particular comes to mind in this regard, one of my oldest friends from the 70s back in Berzerkeley. I occasionally puzzled long and hard on exactly what appeared to be being said in his sporadic messages without much luck until I finally lost patience and simply sent back absolute gibberish (to wit: “Yhhesit, purvalent standard horgening, but omlifically norsegant?”). That usually seems to have caused enough confusion at the other end of the E-mail line to suspend further messages for a while. Hate to do this sort of thing, but hey! Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do, right?

At any rate, even when the cursory ‘Tweet-type’ E-mail messages made more sense, there were fewer and fewer even of them until we arrived at today’s stalemate: few, if any responses of any kind, length and/or coherency in the ‘in-box’. This really had me wondering what exactly was altering others’ habits so profoundly that all of my former correspondents seemingly had dropped off the planet entirely!

Now, it is probably helpful here to state that although I have all the techy gizmos (such as an Apple Watch 4+, an Apple 10 smartphone, a FitBit Ionic, et bloody cetera, as well as an iPad Air, a Dell laptop and a home PC desktop), I absolutely refuse to participate in Facef*** (sic), Twitter and Instagram (to name just a couple). As a life-long scribbler whose chief concern is making the flow of words as coherent as possible through the devices of adequate context and backstory, I refuse to settle for and participate in the truncated inadequacies of expression these mediums inherently foist off upon us. I also refuse to text, considering my thumbs to have far more important things to do (like exploring my main squeeze’s private places) than twiddle on virtual smartphone keyboards.

The end result is that I have almost ceased to hear from my friends, who all have long-since ditched formal keyboarded communications devices in favor of smartphones. None of these far-reaching ramifications really settled in on me in a concrete manner until I read Sherry Turkle’s rather insightful book ‘Alone Together’. Written in 2011, Turkle (who is an anthropologist and psychoanalytically trained psychologist, among other things) wrote her book drawing upon thirty years of experience at MIT studying computer culture and artificial intelligence, as a member of the faculty and researcher. In her book, she explores at great length the modern phenomenon we are confronted by that she terms the ‘loneliness of modern social media’, or that profound sense of isolation from genuine, real-world human contact that has been created by the electronic devices we are now thoroughly socialized to embrace (principally the smartphone). Her book is divided into two halves, the first dealing with initial advances being made in artificial intelligence sciences, principally as they relate to the creation of algorhythm-controlled robotic machines for children (such as the ‘Furby’ and the ‘Tamagotchi Pets’) and interactive, artificial therapist programs (Eliza), but progressing to such far-more complex matters as the development of robotic sex-surrogates that in addition to enhanced human interactive communications programs have accurately simulated and anatomically correct sexual functions (within limits).

As a specialist in the study of how these advances already or will soon impact human lives, Turkle is engrossing not only in the comprehensiveness of her observations and commentary, but in her ability to project lines of future development in these areas of science that are becoming reality far faster than we realise.

The second half of her book devotes itself to the subject of how our modern electronic ‘smart-devices’ have succeeded in creating an entirely new type of loneliness, notably among those under 30 (the so-called millennials, etc.), who have allowed themselves to embrace the premise that ‘virtual interactions’ with others are a perfectly adequate substitute for the traditional ‘direct and in-your-face’ relationships that have been a part of human civilization since language first permitted verbal exchanges. In this section, Turkle focuses acutely on the entire range of imaginable nuances, both positive and profoundly negative, such as virtual reality modes (including gaming and Facef***-type social media venues) wherein highly fanciful, idealised avatar representations of one’s self serve as an intermediary simulacrum for a real person.

One interesting citation Turkle mentions that serves as a paradigmic precursor of modern ‘messaging’ on social media sites is the Victorian ‘Carte de visite’…that printed, personalized calling card of the late 1800s one presented at the home of someone one wished to meet. Since one did not simply walk up to a Victorian house and expect to meet thereupon the person one wished to make contact with, a card was left with the home’s servant or housekeeper, who relayed it to his master (or mistress). If the recipient wished to allow the visitor access, he responded appropriately (through an intermediary) by granting the visitor permission to pay a formal visit. Or not, if he did not wish it.

In its modern social media guise, if someone wishes to ‘friend’ (hate that word, actually, since it is such a false-flag word in the social media milieu) another person, accepted practice demands that one send off a brief message to that person’s social media site. The recipient then visits the sender’s site and makes a decision whether to ‘friend’ or not to friend, but the determination of the sender’s ‘friend-worthiness’ is based entirely on the exaggerated avatar-self the sender has created as an artificial (and typically much enhanced) entity, of course. The whole mechanism behind an avatar-self is to allow a person to create a greater-than-life, hyper-enhanced ‘person’ that more often than not is a romantically exaggerated, idealised form that bears little association to the real person hiding behind it. Rarely does it match any reality the ‘real person’ might possess.

Quite often the avatar is an optimised, larger-than-life representation of that person, who can hide behind the avatar mask knowing that no one is any wiser. And these days, even if actual photographic images of the person are used as avatars, they can be skillfully tweeked so as to render a far more idealized representation than actually exists (i.e. a person can render him/herself slender through simple image manipulation tools or enhance beauty/handsomeness considerably…the possibilities are endless). The bottom line is that what you see is usually NOT what you get on social media sites.

Of course, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing by the reckoning of many young people, because there is or was no real intention to have anyone penetrate behind the disguises and develop a REAL relationship anyway. In fact, sometimes the ‘virtual relationships’ that develop are regarded as more ‘tidy’, more satisfying and…surprisingly…just as real as a REAL one.

One of the many points Turkle makes is that today's young people have so withdrawn into their ‘virtual' social media world that they have all but lost the necessary skills required to suitably interact with other on a direct, real-time and face-front basis with others. This process often began in the home of many adolescents, when parents themselves spend too much time glued to their own smartphones…even during supposedly interactive family moments like dinner. Many younger people feel cheated by the lack of personal attention (quality time) this imposes on them by their parents and it isn‘t hard to understand how pervasive this is, since even in public parks young mothers can often be seen pushing their kids in swings with one hand while texting and chatting with adult friends by smartphone with the other! I see this every day when I take our pup to the park for her walks and it really gives pause for thought (if you aren’t already prone to engaging in this sort of adversely reflexive behavior and are thereby blind to it, that is).

Turkle paraphrases William Shakespeare in this association by stating the resulting condition as a state of being “consumed by that which we are nourished”, and it is entirely apt.

The chief concern Turkle voices is that our modern forms of extremely perfunctory and highly truncated modes of communication do not permit the sort of complexities that fully thought-through communication demands and requires. When one is tweeting or texting a response, there’s no time to reflect carefully on what is being said and couch a suitable (cogent) response in an appropriately focused and fully conceived manner.

These modern abbreviated forms of communication also encourage the spontaneous exchange of inadequately considered opinionizations, moreover: that is to say, it is far easier to seize upon a rudimentary idea or emotionally distorted expression of thought that is incomplete or ‘half-baked’ and quickly toss it out into the arena of exchange with our electronic devices, something that older modes of expression such as letter writing (or even E-mailing) discouraged or made undesirable. Given that human interactions are as a rule governed about 75% of the time by emotions and only 25% or less by reflective reasoning, the various E-mediums can thus induce and perpetuate an unsettling element of needless emotional reactivity into communications that ought properly to be far more carefully developed and articulated.

Another very salient point Turkle brings up is the permanence of the internet. Everything that is sent over or transmitted electronically is captured and held forever in digital memory, whereas postal (written) communications always were and still are highly temporary, materially fragile and ultimately transitory objects. Millennials are increasingly finding out somewhat delatedly how extremely difficult it is to eradicate or eliminate things once stated or posted on the internet, after they mature a little bit and realise that what they said a few years earlier can and often shall come back to haunt them under the appropriate circumstances (e.g. as when a student is applying for college, with interviewers often checking their ‘presence’ on the internet when considering an application). It’s another ‘blessing’ of today’s social media world that seems to elude youthful awareness frequently until it’s too late.

And naturally, even with social media sites like Facef*** reluctantly acknowledging its ‘obligation’ to protect the personal privacy (yada-yada-yada) of social media clients, it is hardly a secret that all that personal data & information is like so much wheat being harvested for the consumptive intentions of Facef*** and its commercial clients. Decry this or not, Facef*** ‘owns’ all that personal data and were it to dare to openly defy all the hue and cry periodically being raised by the public over this issue, there’s no limit as to what extreme damage it could malevolently wreak in the lives of its subscribers (fortunately Mark Zuckerf***er and his cohorts are not yet that brazen or self-important, but you never know what the future will bring, do you?).

In 2011, Microsoft computer scientist Eric Horvitz developed a project named ‘Life Browser’ (not to be confused with Eric Horwitz, MD) whose purpose was to serve as a means of virtually recording a person’s entire life for posterity. Achieving this through the use of various electronic devices and programs incorporated into computers, smartphones and image-capturing devices, the idea was to relieve the human mind of the task of having to remember and record so much information that we are daily exposed to…events, contacts, images, interactions (virtual and real). Think of this program as a sort of an always observant, always aware, always ‘on’ 24/7 Alexa whose sole task is to record and presserve the ongoing events of your life, both signal and mundane. To someone like me, the thought of it is absolutely chilling; to a millennial it might be merely perceived as a far-advanced, omni-parametered and non-stop ‘selfie’ paradigm that is rilly kool. Brrrr.

In 2010 a national study analyzing 14,000 students over the past 30 years revealed that since the year 2000 young people have demonstrated a marked, dramatic decline in their interest in other people: another nuance, doubtless, of the enforced detachment that virtual, E-facilitated interconnectivity encourages among those who wish to remain constantly connected to others through their smartphones (yet in so doing they simultaneously feel increasingly isolated from the far more palpable satisfactions of real, live human contact). It is a further chilling revelation.

Turkle cites the fact, in support of this finding, that psychotherapists confirm to her finding a large number of young clients who present to them during therapy sessions as feeling psychically and emotionally ‘detached’ from their bodies and demonstrate a seeming lack of awareness of even the most basic courtesies required in real life interactions.

As most know, adolescent children (and even pre-adolescents) generally feel somewhat uncertain and insecure about themselves and the ‘growing-up process; when given a smartphone, they often keep their phones ‘close’ and always on. It functions for them as a means of connectedness, of being constantly ‘in-touch’ and not as isolated when doubts and uncertainties press in on them. Of course, when you are reaching out to age-group peers, who are just as confused, insecure and uncertain as yourself, for 'answers' about life's vexing uncertainties, that merely amplifies any resulting disorientation and anxiety that may already exist.

Turkle’s book in all these regards provides a reflective pool in which all of us should perhaps ‘bathe’, as our culture continues to enthusiastically accommodate and tacitly accept all the radical changes in interpersonal behavior that the modern electronic communication age (driven by commerce) exerts upon us, both consciously and unconsciously, but speaking from my own perspective, it is already too late to alter the juggernaut that is commerce-driven contemporary science and technology. As fewer and fewer older (and supposedly wiser) people drop by the wayside due to advanced age, as the millennials become the new social power-movers and shakers (displacing the formerly dominant boomer generation), and as the basic mechanism of social change continues to work its often perverse ‘magic’ on humanity, it’s anyone’s guess as to what the cumulative effects will ultimately be on American culture.

However, since I don’t plan to stick around more than another 10 years or so, it is, after all, simply a matter of academic interest.

Finally, as I wrap this up, the holiday weekend has come to a close and the noisome hordes (who managed to survive the highway slaughter: i.e. those who didn't make the local 5 O'Clock 'Breaking News') are streaming back into the city in their motorized battalions, doubtless frazzled-out by all the hearty partying and ready to banish the kids to school and leap back on their respective occupational treadmills. I hope your holiday was quiet, reflective and serene by comparison. Mine was and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

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PS: Some passing thoughts on smells

Ever noticed how certain odors and fragrances, even though intended to be humanly appealing by their commercial manufacturers, can stink? It's a curious phenomenon, to be sure, but even the most attractive scent can be construed as nauseous, depending upon the varying olfactory nature of the sniffer's senses.

Like most underlying manifestations of living organic matter that we deal with daily (albeit a process not generally or directly perceived by us), chemistry is the key dynamic (yes, that high school science subject so many of us absolutely loathed as adolescents) that we interact with, and it is chemistry that determines our most basic subjective responses and reactions on nearly all levels. I am regularly reminded of this curious little nuance of life in my own observations of the behavioral interactions engaged in by my dog, whose two hundred and twenty odd millions of scent receptors (compared to my own rather paltry five million!) constitute the doggy Rosetta Stone of understanding for her entire universe.

At any rate, I was reminded of this yesterday, while walking her in the local park. While she appeared endlessly fascinated by the rich mix of smells that assailed her on her level (excrement & urine, discarded food bits, other doggy detritus, etc.), I myself was only vaguely mindful of the subtle sylvan scents throw off by the park's many trees...a most pleasant cachet of vaguely appealing odors that would (were if not for the intrusive and pervasive aroma of stale human urine gifted to us more circumspect visitors by the local homeless population) confer mindfulness of a pleasant natural forest setting.

Lost in that torn state of mind, I came across a pavilion in the park (more of a large kiosk with a modest roof over it) that a group of 'older' (meaning 50 and over) ladies use once a week under which to conduct their group aerobic exercise routines. I must have been at least 50 yards away when their collective 'bouquet' washed over me with the merciless natural force of an Indonesian tsunami! YUK!

For your information, it wasn't the scent of sweat, 'old lady' perfumes, body odor or anything more intrusive than that that hit me, but the unmistakable and powerful aroma of Ivory Snow bath soap. DOUBLE YUK! Perhaps it's just me, but the smell of Ivory Snow bath soap by my reckoning ranks up there even higher on the 'objectional smells chart' than raw garbage, stale shit, acetonic urine and ammonia! I quickly feel a wave of nausia building within me whenever I run into that odor...whether in a store, squeezing by some deluded female shopper who thinks cleanliness is godliness, or out on the street in a crowd. For some odd reason, women seem to think Ivory Snow soap is the feminine gold standard for squeaky-cleaness!

Now I grant you that this reaction of mine  to that (by my reckoning) highly objectionable and cloying essence is likely just a profoundly personal and subjective response to that particular smell, but frankly I'd much rather be assaulted by universally acknowledged 'objectionable' odors than by the deathly sweet tang of an 'older lady' who has just scrubbed her hide raw with Ivory Snow soap any day! I'd honestly rather smell the no BS, genuine scent of inaltered, unmodified or enhanced human sweat than that stuff!

For the record, I have no adequately formed impression of exactly what my pup thinks of this particular smell, but I certainly hope she has the good sense to find it equally disturbing!  :P

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PSS: Wouldn't it be nice to live in a country like France, where WYSIWYG editing programs don't automatically impose standards of political correctness upon us and automatically convert dirty, impolite and scatalogically unacceptable words like f***, s*** and bi*** into paragons of verbal virtue, and where people aren't afraid to say MERDE! out loud in public? Sigh!  :P

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