We went to brunch with all our kids and grandkids this past weekend. We’ve been attempting to do just that since sometime in June. As is often the case, I’m not sure what my point is, but 50 years ago this outing would have been much simpler.
The world today is not conducive to physically connecting people. People today work more, eat McDonald’s hamburgers or whatever they can, when they can, just to get by — all this leads to losing connection to one another in the process. Most people rarely have friends over and fewer and fewer join community or social clubs or civic organizations.
I was just thinking (like I always do) how things have changed since, say, World War II. People were much more civic-minded than the current generation. They joined more, gave more, voted more and trusted more.
I remember growing up…. downtown (such as it was) was where people met and talked. The businessmen all took “coffee breaks” and met at the local cafe mid-morning and usually in the afternoon. They drank their bottomless cups of 5-cent coffee and talked to each other about everything. If you went to the barber shop for a haircut, the place might be full, but probably no one was getting a haircut — it was a place the guys hung out, to discuss politics, the crops, weather, sports or anything else going on in the community or world. One could get nails and wire, kerosene lamps, rope or just about anything else needed at the hardware store, but its real purpose seemed to be a meeting place. Go in the back and there was always a lively discussion of some important topic like who would win the world series or whether or not to put a stop sign on highway 19…. You went to the post office to get your mail, but more importantly to socialize and find out what was going on with your neighbors.
Today, we spend more and more time in our cars. When I was growing up people lived at home and went to work, but they also went to those “other” places. Today, those other places pretty much don’t exist — the post offices, hardware stores, coffee shops, barbershops, even “main streets.” If you don’t have those other places, you don’t get to know the people around you. The sense of community kind of disappears and we fall into the home-to-work and back again routine.
I’ll admit I grew up in a very small town, but I knew everyone in town, and they knew me. Today I really don’t know some of our closest neighbors.
Not that I’m in any position to place “blame,” but I guess I blame social media for redefining our idea of community. There is now a Facebook community and a Twitter community and we have “friends” in these communities, but if you think about it, when we’re around and with people, a lot, if not most, of what we communicate is nonverbal. It’s really hard to truly understand people if you’re not face-to-face. Kids need hands-on learning experiences to understand some things — like how to be gentle with the dog, or be respectful of older people or even how to ride a bicycle. Those things can’t be learned on an iPad.
My parents didn’t even own a key to our house. People trusted other people, even strangers. My guess is that today most people tend to not trust others. I recently read that a fairly high percentage of people don’t have a single close friend, or someone with whom you can discuss “important matters.” It seems that a good portion of the younger population suffer from social isolation. I say “suffer,” but I’m sure the younger generation doesn’t see it that way at all.
Obviously the Internet has changed the world and how we live — we can get most anything from Amazon so we don’t “need” those other places like the hardware store, or bookstore or drug store. Where I grew up in Maysville, we didn’t know each other just because we chose to be friends, we did know each other as friends, but also as customers, and businessmen. We knew each other’s names, not just as “the guy that runs the drugstore.” Even in this important election campaign, we watch candidates on TV or read their “tweets” and maybe even participate in on-line or telephone polls, but if one of the candidates held a rally locally, I’d bet a high percentage of the people wouldn’t even attend.
The line between our online communities and our real life is blurring…maybe that’s a good thing; we use the Internet to invite people to dinner and probably serve something made from an online recipe instead of one of our grandmother’s favorite recipes. There’s probably no reason that we can’t use the modern technology to make it easier to interact with others, by scheduling face-to-face meetings and maybe even identifying common interests and groups we’l like to participate in. It’s something to think about and maybe even discuss. If you’d like talk about it, send me a text….
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