This screen is a smoke screen

Continuing on the theme of technology and human relationships, I see an increased tendency to cling onto old friends.

Thanks to the Internet, we can stay connected even when we move away from each other.

They may be good relationships, but we are prone to make less efforts to get to know the people who are in our spatial vicinities.

Is that bad?

The people with whom we share physical space are important in our lives, solely by that fact.

Such as my next door neighbor who lets his trees overgrow into my garden...

We and our neighbors benefit from the same systems for water, electricity, gas, telephone lines, public transportation and so on. Any change you desire in them is not possible, if you are the only one with that opinion. When information about such public utilities is scarce, your neighbor may have a crucial piece that you do not have. For example, you may be wondering how long the power cut is going to last, and your neighbor may know that the electricity would not be coming back in the next 36 hours.

A more useful case would be when my neighbor could alert me to imminent electricity or water supply cut... The Internet is making us negligent of our neighbors, and that is not for our own good. Is this your point?

When the power system is disrupted, by a natural disaster for example, we are disconnected from our friends and acquaintances with whom we communicated through electronic means. Buried cables can be easily disrupted by earthquakes.

And we are left with our neighbors whose names we know but whom we have barely seen in the past several years or more...

We encounter less surprise in our lives. That is another consequence of socializing only with the ones that we get along well with.

Wasn't that the whole purpose of not interacting with people whom we dislike?

You know, sometimes it is your enemy who tells you the uncomfortable truth about you.
  

That's why I want to stay away from them!

Surprises are not always negative and we are depriving ourselves from positive ones, too.

We can't sort the two, because of their very nature as surprises. 

The technology has made many of our hands-on skills redundant, but I realize that it is not something new. It is the very purpose of technology.

Think about the laundry machine. You should be grateful that somebody invented it.

True, but some skills are worth keeping, such as musical-instrument playing.

Aren't you happy that you are spared of listening to very bad performances by amateur players, because we can always play music CDs? 

Yes and no, because many elements in playing an instrument could be understood only by trying our hands at them. Any type of activity needs a broad and thick amateur base to support the very best.

I'm glad that you found a good raison d'être for us the mediocre and the simply untalented.

Anyway, the biggest skills that we are losing is in the domain of human relationships.

You said we are much less obliged to be in good terms with people, because the availability of most goods and services does not depend on whom we know and whether the procurers are willing to do us a favor of parting with what we need.

That is chiefly because technology replaces many of human skills, but I missed the point last time that the number of offers for goods and services also matters. Suppose you are the best chest maker in the area. Further suppose that there is a machine which replicates your chest making skills. If you are the only one who own or could operate it, people would still try to be in good terms with you so that they could have a very good chest.

But if the guy down the street owns the same machine and if people don't like me, they could go to him.

The real strength of technology is in mass production of productive means, comrade! It allows many of us without skills to act as if we were skilled producers. And because it creates many producers whom we can turn to, we don't have to worry about being in good terms with one particular person.

We can buy music CDs from literally millions of sellers. The process of inserting a CD in a CD player and making music come out of it requires much less talent than making music with an instrument.

It implies that technology for mass production is useless if we do not have the mechanism to distribute and sell the products.

Another necessary ingredient is the development of commercial institutions...

The more merchants exist for items that are comparable, the less dependent we are on a specific vendor. It means that we can be less concerned about figuring out people. If we could obtain what we want through only one person, we would have to bring up our needs when s/he is in a good mood.

We can't say, "Ah, excuse me, do you happen to be feeling charitable enough to accept my request without grunting, spitting in my face, or making unreasonable demands in exchange?"

We have to judge based on indirect evidences.

That becomes easier, the more you know the person.

We still encounter occasions in which we need to make a decision about a person whom we just met. However, since our lives nowadays require less and less of face-to-face interactions, we are losing the skills to gauge a person by how s/he looks and behaves in a few minutes.

Chatting online doesn't count as in-person interactions?

Think about all the information that gets lost. The timing it takes in responding is less related to how eager the person is to chat, but more to how fast s/he can type. The tone of the voice, the hand gestures, the facial expressions, etc. are all unavailable.

We can tell quite a lot from the eyes for sure. But do we have to worry about not seeing in person if we could keep in touch otherwise?

There is a great deal to face-to-face interactions, especially with your own species.

If so, it poses an insurmountable problem for you.

Right, I'm one of a kind... In any case, anything that we are told personally has a bigger impact on us than what we read, given that the contents are the same. You must have experienced it yourself.

I guess that is why we go to live lectures instead of just reading a textbook.

For important meetings, the best mode is in person. If that is infeasible, we opt for video conferencing, not telephone conferencing or online chatting.

Although many of us look on the screen as if we had been released from the psychiatric ward for the occasion... 

I may decide to buy something extra, just because an affable storekeeper recommended it. That's different from clicking on "Here's what we recommend for you" and clicking again on one of their recommendations. We shouldn't underestimate how much our interactions with living beings, in particular homo sapiens, could be life enriching.

Come to think of it, people usually keep pets for nothing other than their company.

You see? There is something affecting when your eyes meet with those of a deer for a second in the woods. I don't think it's available online.

That's why we meet in a café rather than e-mail each other, right?

Otherwise, how can you treat me to a piece of Linzer Torte when you feel like it, for example? 

Comrade... why are you waving to the waiter?