

The End of Alone  - kqr2
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2009/02/08/the_end_of_alone/?page=full

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CalmQuiet
The "alone in the crowd" is an often-discussed phenomenon in crushing modern
cultures. The wireless-wired-version is only the latest. It's not less of an
option now to have alone time: just takes more courage. ...and maybe the
wisdom to perceive the diminishing value of "friends" when they are counted in
thousands.

An ironic impact may be the effect of elevating the "wheat" of those willing
to claim their need for alone "downtime" to achieve the introverted
productivity in which tasks such as hacking thrive - above the chaff of those
who cannot bear to miss _any_ social chatter (sorry, I meant 'twitter').

As my yoga teacher liked to say, "Solitude is the price of greatness."

~~~
dominik
Reminds me of: <http://www.demotivators.com/elitism.html>

"It's lonely at the top, but it's comforting to look down upon everyone at the
bottom."

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TomOfTTB
My Gosh! This guy went on for 7 pages and all he really ended up saying was
"Technology makes it harder to be truly alone and that might be a bad thing."
Has anyone ever suggested the death of the print industry might be related to
the fact that they go on for ages and say very little? Yeeesh.

As far as his point I don’t think it holds much weight. He makes it sound like
this is some kind of societal problem that individuals can’t do anything
about. But the reality is it’s an issue of individual self control. If you
want to be alone than you should turn off the Blackberry. You being alone is
simply a function of you making the choice to be alone. It doesn’t matter what
the rest of the world does.

There are legitimate problems that are caused by the doors that technology
opens but this just isn’t one of them.

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aneesh
People only try to contact you all the time & expect you to be available if
you give them that expectation. Tell your coworkers that you're not going to
be checking email on weekends. Tell your friends that you don't answer your
phone after X:00pm. Or just don't answer it. The calls will stop.

Almost everything can wait a couple hours, or until the next day. Personally,
I don't like being perpetually connected. Often I'll go for a long jog, or
bike ride, strangely happy about the fact that no one can contact me for the
next hour or two, even if they wanted.

Set your boundaries, or they will be set for you.

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alabut
This definitely isn't a problem just for technology, it's a broader symptom of
modern society and culture. For example, I've heard New York is one of the
worst places to get lonely or to be new to the city because it feels even more
disorienting to not know anyone when you're surrounded by millions of people,
and pedestrians at that rather than commuters in cars.

Technology definitely can help instead of hurt, you just need to seek out
things that can help increase facetime and meeting new friends rather than
getting your brain sucked in online for the entire night. Facebook events and
meetup come to mind.

