We Are All Cyborgs Now

"In this new regime, a train station (like an airport, a café, or a park) is no longer a communal space but a place of social collection: people come together but do not speak to each other. Each is tethered to a mobile device and to the people and places to which that device serves as a portal. I grew up in Brooklyn..."

Wait a minute.

Steve Rogers, did you write my digital media textbook? O_o

The above photo is a still of the Captain America deleted scenes from The Avengers (2012). Just a kid from 1920s Brooklyn, Steve has been transported into a future where nobody really talks to anybody. Everyone is plugged into a device of some sort designed to take them out of their immediate surroundings. From left to right we have an MP3 player, an eReader, and two smartphones. Steve Rogers, the man out of time, is the only one actually on the train.

Earlier in the clip, when Steve is walking through New York, a cellphone street vendor barks out "Buy some time! Buy some time!"



Is that what we're all doing now? Trying to "make more time by multitasking, our twenty-first-century alchemy" at the expense of living in the moment? I know of one person in particular that is notorious for this type of behavior. I'll have her over at my house, and she will interact with her cellphone every five seconds while we're eating. Trying to have a conversation with her feels like I'm intruding upon the world she really wants to be in. Even my best friend is slipping into this habit now that she has a smartphone. I have to cover up the screen to get her to answer a simple yes or no question. My dog even feels the immediate social disconnect caused by technology; just while I was writing this, he pawed at my leg until I picked him up so he could sit in my lap while I type.

With the immediacy of all of our technology, we are not "existing in the moment" as my yoga teacher likes to say. Recently, however, I've made a concerted effort to stop this, to become a better cyborg by knowing when to turn off the display flickering at the edge of my vision so I can fully experience one event. After all, is all of this connectivity really enhancing our lives when we're sort of--but not really--paying attention to five different things? Well, yes and no. Sometimes, like in class, I use technology to look up supplemental information. That's the beautiful side of technology when online you and real life you is working together towards the same goal. Most times, however...

We're doing five disparate things that detract from each other. I'm not saying this is always a bad thing. Entertainment in itself is not an unworthy pursuit. However, this type of technology is not so shiny new anymore, and we need to learn how to put it down in the right situations. After all, that smartphone is not literally sewn to your hand. Part of the obligation of being a consumer is knowing when to cut yourself off so it does not become an addiction. So, just like the liquor ads always tell you, please