Here's to thinking differently..

With the recent death of the man and the legend himself; Steve Jobs, it has lead me to start thinking about not only the Apple technology he brought to this world, but about technology in general and how exactly has it effect us and our world? 


Recently my friend experienced the gruelling plane ride from here to London then back home again...on her own. It was from here I was discussing with my mother how it must have been quite hard to sit there for all that time, and she suggested to me that although yes it would be hard but to quite "she would find people to talk with" and this statement alone made me think; yes, but would that really happen?!? Coming from a time where ipod's, ipad's, laptops etc. were simply not in popular or widespread use, to what extent what my mother claimed would actually be true, living in a world so widely filled with so many varieties of technology?


Discovering an article from the blog; 'Pop Psychology, For beautiful People. By Aaron Darc'  in the most recent post; "Thinking Differently: Remembering Steve Jobs", he discusses Steve Job's contributions and the implications of such contributions, but within the post he raises what I considered an interesting idea. Darc quotes; 


"...But on those trains, I leave the cruel reality of strangers sitting all around me – we all leave one another, together – through the little screens that take us to the place we were before, when we were in our homes on a slightly bigger version of the machine."


Here he refers to the people simply just sitting around him on the train as a 'cruel reality of strangers'. It just makes me think..when did other people with the exact goal as you (just trying to get somewhere, trying to simply reach their destination) become a cruel reality of strangers, why is the thought of other people I may not already know so scary and horrifying?!?


Many criticisms and arguments have been made that technology does not isolate us from other people, but rather it helps us better connect and communicate with others. But I ask this; yes we may all be connected, but are we really connecting? As Darc also states; 


That’s the genius of the iPhone! And I don’t even have to literally speak to anyone anymore.


I read that quote, with a degree of sadness. What happened to actually connecting with the people we share this world with and at what point did it become such a bad thing?


to be continued...