Schools tried electronic learning after the coronavirus hit. Not much learning took place. Some politicians want remote voting for the November election; that’s a recipe for fraud. Churches met online only for a few months; tithes plummeted. Businesses traded secretaries for pre-recorded phone trees and Indian call centers; good luck getting even the most basic help. The morning newspaper and nightly news broadcast have been replaced by whatever scrolls across smartphones; our society is more ignorant of what’s really going on than ever.
I’m waiting for “virtual eating” to become a thing. You know, a projection of food on a screen — maybe even three-dimensionally! — rather than actually putting it in your mouth. The Millennials are sure to eat it up.
Oh, the possibilities! Digital camping! Online only beach trips! Web-based procreation may be next — but I’m not going to go there.
You get what I’m saying, though: Our national urge to replace everything “real” with a digital replica sometimes just doesn’t work.
You can’t get nourishment from “digital” food. A student can’t learn as much from a computer — with millions of distractions constantly beckoning from Fortnite sessions to Cheez-Its in the pantry — as they can sitting in a classroom. The word “church” even means “assembly” in the Greek (“ekklesia” for you New Testament scholars out there), so it’s not ever going to be the same assembly/church when you’re not actually assembling/churching.
Why are all these things so?
I think the simple answer is that humans are social creatures who receive benefits from being around each other.
Have you noticed that the more digitally connected our society has gotten, the weaker our communities have become? We have fewer strong locally owned businesses, civic clubs and churches.
Why? Because we’re social beings and the digital replacements for real interactions weaken us deep in our souls. Everyone’s content to sit at home and stare at their phones as their lives waste away around them. Corporations, seeing that as an opportunity, are pouring all of their resources into figuring out how to sell people junk via their mobile phones. It’s a successful business strategy, no doubt, but it’s eating our lives from the core.
We need real interactions to survive. Hopefully the isolation that came from the coronavirus shutdowns awakened some of us to that reality. No matter how many Zoom meetings you have, it’s not ever going to be the same as shaking someone’s hand and looking them in the eye.
Perhaps you can tell I’m exasperated with the situation. But I just deeply believe that we’re jumping off too far and too quickly into the digital pit without considering what will happen when we hit the bottom.
Sometimes, there’s just nothing like the analog thing.
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at (601) 736-2611 or csmith@columbianprogress.com.
