With the advent of the Internet, some feared we were entering an age in which social communication would become obsolete in the face of the rapid exchange of information. While this certainly hasn’t been proven to play out as the doomsday scenario was proposed, it’s interesting to consider how psychologically invested in – and dependent on – technology we’ve become.
Flight 370 disappeared off radar screens on March 8, not to be seen or heard from since. While many possibilities have been explored as to the cause of the missing jet, ranging from pilot error and mechanical malfunctions to more sinister ideas of terrorism and deliberate grounding, perhaps what is most unsettling is the simple fact that the plane seems to have just vanished without a trace.
In a time in which information, directions and location indication, included, is so easily accessible, it’s hard to conceive that a plane carrying over 200 people could slip into oblivion without some indication of where it went.
Consider the ease of finding the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts; what once would have meant an interrogation of locals on street corners has now become a 30 second search on Google Maps.
Certainly, if finding a place to get coffee is so simple, shouldn’t the state of the art radar now employed globally for aviation be able to find a massive plane?
Prior to the explosion of cell phone usage, individuals were not able to be in contact at all hours of the day, restricted to land lines that were few and far between, especially whentraveling. Today, with over 327,577,529 active cell phones in use in the U.S. alone, according to a CITA 2013 study, the nature of relationships has changed dramatically. With the ability to contact friends and family across the globe with the push of a button, the idea that this line of communication would abruptly be broken is a frightening one.
We’ve become so dependent on the symbiotic relationship between technology and personal interaction that when threatened, we simply do not know how to react. Technology has become so deeply ingrained in our culture that when it fails, as in the case of the missing plane, it’s easy to feel that a part of us has failed as well.
We’ve plunged back into the unknown that existed prior to the Google generation, where answers cannot be found with the help of a search box. Perhaps it’s the frightening reality of progress, a recognition that the luxurious world of communication that we’ve created is becoming our only world.
Conversely, perhaps this is the advent of a digital dark age, an indication that we have begun to descend down a dark path of global breakdown without the technology we have relied on too heavily for too long. Or perhaps, it’s simply a wakeup call to remind us to break the anxieties of our dependency on technology in favor of intellectual independence, a reminder that reality isn’t as neat as coding across a page.
