Modern Lives are Reducing the Opportunities for Family Interactions
"I need a new computer so that I do not have fight your brother for the notebook computer all the time," say my mother when I asked the reason she wants to buy a computer all the sudden. The rationale sounded just like the one for why there are so many bedrooms in the new three-bedroom house that we have here in San Diego: It is to ensure that everyone gets his or her own PC so that there is no awkward forced sharing of a common resource. And looking at the multiple baths, TVs, tables, sofas, it sounds like my family has been busy making this principle commonplace throughout the household.
I suppose that in modern life, everything is about efficiency. Everyone wants to get his or her things completed without having to wait for others. And if the financial resources allow for capability for everyone to complete their tasks at the same time, it makes absolutely no economic sense for the family to not take up that option. In the fast-paced, information-based, technology-frenzy modern society, there is just no excuse for a person to delay certain work just because the necessary devices were not immediately available.
But looking at the need from a different angle, there appears to be deeper emotional problem. Even asking each other to share the computer was, up until now, the few moments in time that we as family members had to communicate to each others. Yes, mostly the conversation consists merely of "Can I use the computer?" and "Yes, just a second" but the reality is, most of the conversations that goes on in our family has been reduced to that level of length, simplicity, and emotional expression.
Perhaps modern families are just too individualistic. Family members are always engrossed in their own little projects, completed for their own personal gain and glory outside the family circle. To complete the projects, they have to be both physically and emotionally separated from the other family members. Each is highly oblivious to the tasks of the others, and due to our own busy schedules, cannot squeeze out the time and the energy to care about the tasks of the others even if we really wanted to.
And buying a new PC so that everyone can have one is just too illustrative of that emotionally detached individualism. With wireless Internet in place, the PC is all a person ever need for information and entertainment these days. Gone are the days when people gather around the family living room, watching TV or just chatting away. The existence of the Internet, accessible in individual bedroom, cancel out any need for social interaction among family members, for necessity or entertainment.
For convenience, I have to recommend my family for getting another new PC. But, if I were to consider the emotional meanings behind it, I have to express my reservations. In a family environment where talking to each other is already so rare (and that I am still trying to improve the connections), the disappearance of another cause for reducing "conversations" is, to me, a representation of more sorrow. The only time we as a family do ever spend together will be reduced just to 15-minute-each lunch and dinner times.
Modern lives are not without its set of negatives. Yes, our lives are more convenient now that everything we ever need to survive can be accessed and obtained (thanks to e-commerce). But the convenience comes at a cost of loosened social unity. No longer do we need to talk to our local shopkeepers, neighbors, or even our own relatives to satisfy our daily needs. Everything is now automated, and people can reduce the opportunity cost of having to talk to anyone at all.
Yet, it is talking that brings people closer together. Sharing laughs or tears with people one comes into contact with for years at a time is perhaps the only way to develop real friendships, if such a thing still exists. Modern lives have been too busy to equate automation and virtual technology with higher standard of living to notice that perhaps, a high standard of living cannot simply be defined by a person's convenience and economic well-being.
I suppose that in modern life, everything is about efficiency. Everyone wants to get his or her things completed without having to wait for others. And if the financial resources allow for capability for everyone to complete their tasks at the same time, it makes absolutely no economic sense for the family to not take up that option. In the fast-paced, information-based, technology-frenzy modern society, there is just no excuse for a person to delay certain work just because the necessary devices were not immediately available.
But looking at the need from a different angle, there appears to be deeper emotional problem. Even asking each other to share the computer was, up until now, the few moments in time that we as family members had to communicate to each others. Yes, mostly the conversation consists merely of "Can I use the computer?" and "Yes, just a second" but the reality is, most of the conversations that goes on in our family has been reduced to that level of length, simplicity, and emotional expression.
Perhaps modern families are just too individualistic. Family members are always engrossed in their own little projects, completed for their own personal gain and glory outside the family circle. To complete the projects, they have to be both physically and emotionally separated from the other family members. Each is highly oblivious to the tasks of the others, and due to our own busy schedules, cannot squeeze out the time and the energy to care about the tasks of the others even if we really wanted to.
And buying a new PC so that everyone can have one is just too illustrative of that emotionally detached individualism. With wireless Internet in place, the PC is all a person ever need for information and entertainment these days. Gone are the days when people gather around the family living room, watching TV or just chatting away. The existence of the Internet, accessible in individual bedroom, cancel out any need for social interaction among family members, for necessity or entertainment.
For convenience, I have to recommend my family for getting another new PC. But, if I were to consider the emotional meanings behind it, I have to express my reservations. In a family environment where talking to each other is already so rare (and that I am still trying to improve the connections), the disappearance of another cause for reducing "conversations" is, to me, a representation of more sorrow. The only time we as a family do ever spend together will be reduced just to 15-minute-each lunch and dinner times.
Modern lives are not without its set of negatives. Yes, our lives are more convenient now that everything we ever need to survive can be accessed and obtained (thanks to e-commerce). But the convenience comes at a cost of loosened social unity. No longer do we need to talk to our local shopkeepers, neighbors, or even our own relatives to satisfy our daily needs. Everything is now automated, and people can reduce the opportunity cost of having to talk to anyone at all.
Yet, it is talking that brings people closer together. Sharing laughs or tears with people one comes into contact with for years at a time is perhaps the only way to develop real friendships, if such a thing still exists. Modern lives have been too busy to equate automation and virtual technology with higher standard of living to notice that perhaps, a high standard of living cannot simply be defined by a person's convenience and economic well-being.
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