As our lives move deeper into the digital realm, the way we connect with others keeps changing.
Sometimes it feels as if our world has shrunk, and yet, in another sense, it has expanded beyond measure.
Lately, I often feel that my circle of human relationships has grown remarkably small.
At work, I have one junior pathologist and four or five laboratory technologists.
I’ve known the pathologist for two years now, but we’ve long since run out of small talk; these days we mostly stick to work-related conversations.
Our values differ in many ways, and that can’t be helped.
As for the technologists, we work in separate areas, so we hardly talk at all.
Most of them are in their twenties, and our topics of interest don’t overlap much.
It’s only natural—after all, we’re almost a generation apart.
Other than them, the only person I regularly interact with is my wife.
She is, of course, my greatest supporter and companion, and our conversations never seem to run dry.
When work is over, I go straight home, and I truly love the home we’ve built together.
Unlike me, my wife is sociable and has many acquaintances in our neighborhood.
She may not have many people she’d call close friends, but her social world is far broader than mine.
Somehow, my own society has quietly narrowed over time.
The ease of email and social networks surely plays a role.
When I wonder how someone is doing, it’s easier to send a message than make a call, and by scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, I can “force-feed” myself bits of their recent life.
This blog doesn’t reveal much about my own daily details, but—
“Well, it seems Coloken is doing fine.”
—might be the sort of vague impression I leave.
Human connections, and the society they form, have in one sense become smaller, yet in another, vastly expanded.
Whether one feels loneliness in that shrinking space, or builds a new kind of community within the digital world, depends on the person.
As for me, I still long for real, face-to-face interaction.
Perhaps it’s because I was born and raised before the digital era—a member of the old human race.
